HOURS  OF  THOUGHT 


ON 


BY 

JAMES    MARTINEAU,   LL.D.,  D.D., 

AUTHOR  OF  "ENDEAVORS  AFTER  THE  CHRISTIAN  LIFE,"  ETC. 


*"X*I*  «y'|?  T6irov  otKcioTepop  iirl  y>js  OVK  Ix^t  0cd?. 

DEMOPHILI  Sent.  Pytha.g.  45. 

Um  Gott  zu  Jtaien,  muss  man  zuerst  etwas  sein,  das  Gott  haben  kann. 

RICHARD  ROTHE:   Stille  Stunden,  189. 


BOSTON: 

ROBERTS      BROTHERS. 
1876. 


2      - 


CAMBRIDGE: 
PRESS  OF  JOHN  WILSON  AND  SON. 


PREFACE. 


THE  first  duty,  it  has  been  said,  of  a  retired  preacher 
is  to  commit  to  the  flames  whatever  he  has  prepared 
for  the  pulpit,  and  secure  the  world  against  further 
tedium  from  his  labors.  In  the  face  of  this  canon  of 
clerical  duty,  I  have  hesitated  to  rescue  a  few  fragments 
from  the  process  of  destruction,  and  let  them  try  for 
themselves  whether  their  natural  life  has  reached  its 
term.  If  I  have  found  courage  for  the  experiment,  it  is 
chiefly  because  a  previous  collection,  which  thirty  years 
ago  I  did  not  expect  to  reproduce,  is  apparently  more 
true  to  the  feeling  of  the  present  time  than  to  that  of 
the  last  generation.  Those  who  have  spent  thought 
and  zeal  on  the  moral  movements  of  their  age  may 
naturally  dread,  as  their  strength  declines  and  their 
speed  slackens,  to  be  thrown  out  of  the  great  march 
which  they  have  long  shared;  and  they  may  legiti- 
mately put  it  to  the  test,  whether  they  have  dropped 
off  into  loneliness,  or  whether  their  voice  is  still  in  har- 
mony with  the  tones  which  meet  the  future.  If  the 
following  pages  should  foster  any  high  impulse  in  those 


iv  Preface. 

who  have  the  work  of  life  before  them,  or  shed  any 
light  on  those  who  have  the  sorrows  of  life  behind 
them,  I  shall  be  content  not  to  have  withheld  it. 

This  volume  represents,  on  the  whole,  a  considerably 
later  stage  of  feeling  and  experience  than  the  "Endeav- 
ors after  the  Christian  Life  " ;  and  doubtless  bears  traces, 
in  parts,  of  the  more  recent  aspects  of  religious  specu- 
lation. But  essentially  the  same  view  of  life,  the  same 
conception  of  the  order  of  the  world,  the  same  inter- 
pretation of  the  Christian  mind,  will  still  meet  the 
reader ;  for  they  remain  unaffected,  so  far  as  I  can 
perceive,  by  the  real  discoveries,  and  are  prejudiced 
only  by  the  philosophical  fictions  of  the  last  five  and 
twenty  years.  The  new  lights  of  historical  criticism 
certainly  change,  in  no  slight  degree,  our  picture  of  the 
origin  and  growth  of  the  Christian  religion :  but  every 
larger  comprehension  of  the  universe  only  invests  the 
principles  of  that  religion  with  sublimer  truth  ;  and 
every  added  refinement  of  conscience  the  more  attests 
their  spiritual  worth. 

LONDOJI,  October  6, 1876. 


CONTENTS. 


i. 

PAGE 

The  Tides  of  the  Spirit 1 

II. 

Seek  first  the  Kingdom  of  God  —  1 17 

III. 
Seek  first  the  Kingdom  of  God  — II 31 

IV. 
The  Witness  of  God  with  our  Spirit 45 

V. 
The  Better  Part 59 

VI. 
Perfection  Divine  and  Human 72 

VII. 
The  Moral  Quality  of  Faith 86 

VIII. 
Divine  Justice  and  Pardon  reconciled 102 


vi  Contents. 

IX. 

God  revealed  unto  Babes 


X. 

The  Messengers  of  Change     .     .          ......     127 

XI. 
Secret  Trust     .............    -.140 


XH. 
The  Sorrows  of  Messiah    ..........     153 

XIII. 
The  Bread  of  Life     ............     164 

XIV. 
The  Unknown  Paths      .     .     .     .     ......     177 

XV. 

The  Finite  and  the  Infinite  in  Human  Nature     .     .     191 

XVI. 
Time,  to  Nature,  God,  and  the  Soul  ......     203 

XVII. 
Forgiveness  to  Love  ............     217 

xvm. 

Life  to  the  Children  of  the  Prophets  ......     229 


Contents.  vii 

XIX. 

PAGE 

The  Godly  Man 243 

XX. 

The  Inner  and  Outer  Kingdom  of  God 256 

XXI. 
Religion  in  Parable 270 

XXII. 

Neither  Man  nor  Woman  in  Christ  Jesus     ....     284 

XXIII. 
The  Powers  of  Love 297 

XXIV. 
The  Discipline  of  Darkness 315 

XXV. 

Best  in  the  Lord  .  329 


HOURS    OF   THOUGHT. 


I. 

&ty  Citos  of  %  Spirti 

LUKE  iv.  16. 

"And  he  came  to  Nazareth,  where  he  had  been  brought  up;  and  as  his 
custom  was,  he  went  into  the  synagogue  on  the  sabbath  day,  and  stood  up 
for  to  read.  ' 

\VE  cannot  wonder  that  something  in  his  look, — some 
visible  flush  of  inward  life, — fastened  the  eyes  of  all 
upon  him.  For  to  his  human  feeling,  which  could  no- 
where assert  a  greater  right  than  there,  the  moment 
was  overcharged  with  a  certain  sad  intensity.  Since 
last  he  stood  upon  that  spot,  a  change  had  passed  upon 
him  :  a  light,  long  struggling  with  the  clouds  and  often 
drowned  in  a  golden  haze  of  mystery,  had  cleared  itself 
within  him :  he  was  no  longer  at  his  own  disposal,  or 
free  to  rest  upon  the  trodden  paths;  but  the  sacred 
dove  was  ever  on  the  wing  before  him,  and  now  alighted 
on  the  synagogue  of  Nazareth,  and  there,  where  he 
naturally  fell  into  the  attitude  of  docility,  left  him  to 
speak  the  word  of  supernatural  power.  Never  is  it  so 

£ 


2  The  Tides  of  the  Spirit. 

hard  to  follow  and  trust  a  higher  inspiration,  as  amid 
the  crowd  of  customary  things  ;  and  in  proportion  as 
the  heart  is  tender  and  gracious,  clinging  with  fibres  of 
reverent  affection  to  the  past,  is  it  a  sorrowful  loyalty 
that  takes  us  out  to  anything  heyond.  If  ever  Jesus 
could  yield  to  misgivings  of  what  was  committed  to 
him,  it  would  he  in  that  place  ;  whose  threshold  he 
could  not  reach  without  passing  the  cottage  and  the 
workshop  door,  and  overtaking  the  slow  steps  and  bent 
forms  of  village  elders,  and  being  startled  by  the  re- 
membered laugh  of  many  a  child ;  whose  walls  were 
written  all  over  with  early  memories ;  where  bars  of 
sunshine  painted  the  floor  with  a  meaning  not  to  be 
erased ;  where  the  voices  of  familiars  whispered  round 
him ;  and  the  venerable  features  were  turned  upon  him 
of  the  Levite  who  taught  him  to  read  the  very  scroll  in 
his  hand ;  and  he  felt  the  eye  of  Mary,  and  knew  all 
the  flutter  of  her  heart.  There,  in  presence  of  those 
at  whose  feet  he  used  to  sit, — there,  where  he  first 
heard  and  pondered  Israel's  hope,  and  watched  a  holy 
light  on  other  faces,  not  knowing  that  it  was  reflected 
from  his  own, — how  could  he  stand  up  and  draw  the' 
great  words  of  Isaiah  upon  himself,  and  say  aloud, 
'  This  is  the  hour,' — '  Lo  !  it  is  I.'  ?  A  consciousness 
less  divinely  calm  must  have  grown  confused  under  the 
crossing  rays  of  so  many  sympathies.  But  with  him 
the  temptation  was  now  passed  :  he  had  emerged  from 
the  desert  that  lay  between  the  old  life  and  the  new. 


The  Tides  of  tfie  Spirit.  3 

The  very  Spirit  of  God  had  driven  him  thither  to  hear 
what  could  be  said  against  itself:  pale  with  fasting, 
alone  by  night  with  his  Satan  and  his  God,  he  had 
learned  the  worst;  had  not  only  flung  the  self  away, 
but  loosed  the  detaining  hand  of  custom,  and  freely 
gone  into  the  divine  captivity.  And  now,  he  was  no 
longer  his  own  :  his  humanity  was  the  organ  of  a  higher 
Will :  no  flitting  of  the  Spirit,  off  and  on, — it  rested 
with  him  now ;  no  stormy  skies  that  often  blotted  out 
the  stars,  but  a  pure  and  tranquil  look  into  the  infinite. 
And  so,  he  could  bear  those  native  scenes  again,  for  they 
lay  in  another  light :  the  hills  of  Nazareth  were  trans- 
figured before  him  :  from  all  things  round  the  dull  and 
weary  aspect  had  fled,  that  makes  them  press  with  the 
weight  of  usage ;  and  he  stood  amid  the  well-known 
groups,  as  some  immortal  friend  might  return  and  look 
in  among  us  here,  with  unabated  love,  but  with  saintly 
insight  into  meanings  hid  from  us. 

Lifted  then  into  the  full  power  of  the  Spirit,  with  the 
forces  of  evil  already  shrinking  before  him,  whither,  as 
least  uncongenial,  does  he  take  his  heavenly  point  of 
view  ? — To  the  village  synagogue,  on  the  stated  day  of 
rest :  nothing  newer,  nothing  higher ;  but  just  the  place 
and  time  which  had  been  sacred  to  the  fathers.  The 
first. thing  which  he  did,  under  freshest  inspiration,  was 
to  resume  the  dear  old  ways,  to  fall  in  with  the  well- 
known  season,  to  unroll  the  same  venerable  page ;  only 
to  find  a  new  moaning  in'  words  that  had  long  carried 

B  2 


jU»Jb  ***JtMUtf>  *  <*"*A~  CJLv*!,  *"-i^xjL^.^ 

<T  their  rhythm  to  his  heart.  What  ?  had  he  not  risen  aljove 

that  ?  could  the  dull  preachings  and  the  drawling  prayers 
say  anything  to  him  ?  What  charm  could  he  longer 
feel  in  these  childish  Sabbath  usages, — the  decent  dress, 
the  restful  hours,  the  flowing  together  of  families  aud 
walking  to  the  house  of  God  in  company  ?  Did  not  he, 
above  all,  live  in  a  constant  air  of  divine  communion, 
and  mingle  with  the  eternity  where  all  is  consecrate 
alike  ?  Do  what  he  might,  go  wliere  he  would, — walk- 
ing early  on  the  beach,  sitting  by  the  well  at  noon,  or 
kneeling  by  night  upon  the  mountain  grass,  jostled  by 
the  city  multitudes  or  borne  upon  the  sea  alone, — was- 
he  not  always  with  the  Father, — himself  a  better  sanc- 
tuary than  he  could  ever  find  ?  What  could  a  nature 
at  that  height  have  to  do  with  any  sacred  enclosure  of 
space  or  time  ?  Yet,  "  at  Nazareth,  where  he  had  been 
brought  up,  he  went,  as  his  custom  was,  into  the  syna- 
gogue on  the  Sabbath  day." 

We  are  sustained  then  by  the  sympathy  of  the  highest 
inspiration,  when  we  make  it  our  "  custom  "  too,  to 
illuminate  in  our  calendar  some  holy  day,  and  to  raise 
near  every  cluster  of  our  dwellings  a  house  where 
"  prayer  is  wont  to  be  made."  Heed  not  the  fastidious 
critic  who  tells  you  that  the  world  has  outgrown  the 
church, — that  the  living  voice  of  trust  and  aspiration 
shall  soon  have  no  response  from  sorrowing  and  struggling 
men.  Depend  upon  it,  hisjs  the  humour  of  the  hour ; 
and  you  who  keep  to  the  old  reverent  ways  are  taking 


TJie  Tides  of  tJie  Spirit.  5 

sides  with  the  perpetuity  of  our  humanity.  Fear  not 
that  you  have  here  to  do  with  any  perishable  work. 
Crowd  the  pavement  of  the  church  with  the  aged  and 
the  young :  make  it  the  favourite  store-house  of  earnest 
vows  and  living  sacrifice  :  train  its  echoes  to  sweet  and 
holy  hymns,  that  shall  blend  soul  with  soul,  and  carry 
all  to  God ;  and,  thus  sanctified,  let  it  stand  by  night 
and  day  a  silent  witness  to  the  world  of  invisible  and 
heavenly  things. 

Against  the  Christian  habit  of  seasonal  and  local 
worship  the  truth  is  often  urged,  that  God  is  a  Spirit, 
eternal  and  omniscient,  abiding  neither  in  "  this  moun- 
tain "  nor  in  that  "  Jerusalem,"  and  bearing  equal  rela- 
tion to  every  mind  and  every  moment.  This  truth  is 
drawn  aside  into  two  opposite  abuses.  On  the  one 
hand,  the  mystic  would  mould  himself  into  accordance 
with  the  divine  constancy,  by  spreading  the  margin  of 
his  prayer  till  it  covers  the  whole  of  life ;  and  would  let 
out  the  imprisoned  glory  of  his  highest  mood  to  trans- 
figure all  the  years.  For  him  it  is  too  small  a  thing  to 
be  "  in  the  spirit  on  the  Lord's  day  "  :  any  little  Patmos- 
isle  of  vision  is  too  limited  for  him  :  he  must  be  always 
at  the  holiest  he  can  ever  be  :  he  must  sink  his  whole 
footing  and  himself  away  in  the  infinite  flood  whose 
perfection  has  no  tides.  To  pass  into  a  sacred  equa- 
nimity and  float  evenly  along,  neither  wrapt  in  chariot 
of  fire,  nor  blinded  with  clouds  of  dust ;  to  carry  about 
in  the  heart  a  heaven  that  shall  steep  the  commonest 


6  The  Tides  of  the  Spirit. 

work  in  stainless  colours  ;  to  let  labour  and  rest,  youth 
and  age,  with  all  intermittent  things,  stand  for  the  body 
and  be  nothing  to  the  soul,  and  inwardly  live  as  if  no 
shadows  lengthened  and  no  heavens  rolled ; — is  the 
secret  aim  of  one  who  loses  himself  in  the  spirituality 
and  immensity  of  God.  And  this  very  same  truth 
which  urges  him  to  worship  always,  i.e.  as  much  at  one 
time  as  at  another,  is,  on  the  other  hand,  the  plea  with 
the  secular  temper  for  specially  worshipping  never,  i.e. 
as  little  at  one  time  as  at  another.  How  often  do  you 
fall  in  with  one  who  feels  himself  above  the  superstition 
of  real  prayer  ;  who  is  conscious  of  no  personal  relations 
beyond  this  world  ;  to  whom  the  whole  expression  and 
organism  of  religion  is  but  a  discipline  for_social  duty, — 
a  discipline  necessary  for  the  feeble,  decorous  for  the 
good,  but  empty  for  the  wise  ;  who  is  rather  its  patron 
than  its  disciple,  and  maintains  churches  for  the  world 
as  he  keeps  a  nursery  for  his  children,  with  as  little 
idea  of  spending  his  own  adult  and  earnest  life  there  ; 
and  who  looks  on  times  and  places  of  devotion,  on  the 
voice  of  contrition  and  aspiration,  on  the  swelling  hymn, 
on  the  impassioned  words  of  psalmist  and  prophet,  and 
the  memorials  of  a  Saviour's  sacrifice,  as  an  overwrought 
provision  for  sustaining  the  daily  moralities  of  life. 
Serving  God's  will  in  the  constant  course  of  a  faithful, 
manly,  kindly  career,  he  is  out  of  his  element  else- 
where ;  has  no  burden  to  lay  down,  no  height  to  seize  : 
always  equal  to  himself,  he  wants  no  reminder,  appro- 


The  Tides  of  the  Spirit.  7 

priates  no  confession,  and  receives  every  ideal  demand 
upon  him  as  flowing  water  receives  falling  sparks.  And 
so,  he  looks  down  on  all  special  worship  as  a  weakness 
to  which  he  cannot  descend;  and,  if  ever  social  con- 
jexion  or  hereditary  ties  commit  him  to  the  interests  of 
a  Christian  church,  he  upholds  it  for  others  rather  than 
himself;  or  else  encourages  it  as  a  platform  of  party 
self-assertion,  and  is  proud  of  its  dedication  to  his  own 
opinions,  instead  of  humbly  offering  in  it  the  best  that 
he  has,  and  all  that  he  is,  to  the  real  and  living  God. 

Now  what  answer  can  we  give  to  these  two  men, 
both  apparently  resting  on  a  great  and  sublime  truth, — 
the  eternal  constancy  of  God  ? — the  one  adapting  him- 
self to  it  by  congenial  persistency  of  devotion, — the 
other  by  ethical  steadiness  of  will.  Shall  we  ask  from 
each  of  them  some  little  allowance  for  human  infirmity, 
which  cannot  hold  on  by  a  rule  so  patient  ?  Shall  we 
say  to  the  Mystic,  '  You  must  let  us  down  at  times 
from  that  untenable  height  of  yours  :  why  bid  us 

"Wind  ourselves  too  high 
For  mortal  man  beneath  the  sky"? 

we  are  on  earth  and  God  in  heaven ;  and  while  we  are 
here,  our  feet  must  sometimes  stroll  the  easy  grass,  and 
the  natural  darkness  hide  diviner  visions  from  us '  ? 
And  shall  we  say  to  the  other,  '  You  must  not  expect 
every  one  to  be  as  even-minded  as  yourself, — as  well 
able  to  dispense  with  the  freshening  of  conscience  and 


8  The  Tides  of  the  Spirit. 

the  fervours  of  faith :  the  atmosphere  of  the  common 
human  nature  is  of  unstable  balance,  and  so  long  as  it 
has  its  belt  of  tropical  heats,  you  must  let  its  sweeping 
winds  have  way  '  ?  In  answering  thus,  you  plead  on 
both  hands  for  a  concession  to  acknowledged  weakness  ; 
and  you  treat  just  the  opposite  things  as  weakness  in 
the  two  cases,  making  humble  excuse,  first,  for  ever 
touching  the  earth,  and  then,  for  ever  springing  towards 
heaven  ;  and,  in  both  instances,  apologising  for  alterna- 
tions of  mood  as  something  humiliating  but  inevitable, 
needing  the  tender  mercy  of  Reason  and  out  of  harmony 
with  the  reality  of  God.  These  feeble  self-contradic- 
tions I  venture  to  leave  behind,  and  to  advance  at  once 
to  a  firmer  position.  In  the  Occasionalism  of  piety,  I 
see  not  its  shame,  but  its  distinctive  glory  ;  and  would 
lay  stress  on  the  intermittcncy  of  the  devout  affections, 
as  the  sign,  not  of  poverty  or  weakness,  but  specifically 
of  their  grandeur  in  themselves,  and  their  accurate 
accordance  with  what  is  highest  in  God's  realities. 

For,  whether  you  stay  at  home,  and  look  in  upon 
the  composition  of  our  own  nature ;  or  go  out  into 
the  universe  and  Providence  of  God,  you  will  find  this 
law : — that,  of  his  agencies  and  manifestations,  it  is 
the  lowest  that  are  least  mutable,  and  most  remain  the 
same  from  first  to  last ;  whilst  the  highest  have  ever 
a  tidal  ebb  and  flow, — moving  in  waves  of  time,  and 
surprising  hidden  inlets  of  space  with  their  flood. 

In  our    bodily  constitution  itself  this  law  already 


The  Tides  of  the  Spirit.  9 

begins  to  leave  its  trace.  Two  systems  of  parts  and 
offices  co-exist,  we  are  told,  in  the  human  frame ;  one 
comprising  the  group  of  organs  and  functions  which 
we  have  in  common  with  the  vegetable  world,  and  by 
which,  like  the  plants,  we  breathe,  and  take  and  use 
our  nourishment,  and  throb  with  the  sap  of  strength, 
and  grow;  the  other  including  the  additional  endow- 
ments of  an  animated  organism,  the  instruments  by 
which  we  move,  and  perceive,  and  feel.  By  the  organic 
life  we  vegetate ;  by  the  animal  life  we  suffer  and  we 
act.  And  in  accordance  with  their  respective  ranks,  the 
former  and  lower  never  ceases  or  remits  from  birth  to 
death  ; — the  beating  heart,  the  heaving  breast,  and  all 
the  silent  chemistries,  persevering  by  night  and  day, 
whether  half  seen  beneath  the  bloom  of  infancy,  or 
shut  up  beneath  the  lines  of  age ;  while  the  latter  and 
higher  subsists  by  intermission, — springs  into  action, 
falls  back  into  sleep  ;  and  even  with  the  young  child's 
eye,  so  bold  and  loving  to  the  light,  the  lids  droop  and 
enforce  a  shade  ;  and  the  quick  limbs  collapse  and  are 
flung  upon  the  bed  of  nature  till  the  spent  tide  returns. 
Rise  a  step  higher  in  our  nature,  and  the  intermittent 
pulsation  of  the  finer  energies  becomes  more  marked. 
Mind  is  more  fitful  than  strength,  less  under  steady 
control  of  the  will,  faster  and  further  in  its  ebb,  in  pro- 
portion as  it  is  fuller  and  grander  in  its  flood.  The 
day-labourer  with  his  limbs  can  bear  longer  hours  than 
the  .man  of  letters  with  his  pen ;  and  can  produce  more 


10  The.  Tides  of  the  Spirit, 

even  work.  And  precisely  as  the  faculties  which  he 
tasks  are  above  the  level  of  intellectual  routine,  is  the 
thinker  dependent  on  moods  which  he  cannot  command 
or  prolong  : — to  learn,  to  criticize,  to  judge,  to  arrange, 
being  usually  in  his  power  ;  but  to  combine,  to  discover, 
to  create,  being  the  free  gift  of  happy  moments  not 
his  own.  Is  he  a  compiler  and  fabricator  of  mental 
products  ?  his  process,  like  any  other  manufacture,  may 
go  on,  wherever  the  machinery  of  industry  is  set  in 
motion.  Is  he  poet  or  inventor  ?  then  he  seems  to  be 
the  organ  of  another  will,  and  to  be  now  lifted  into 
clear  achievement,  now  sunk  into  deep  humiliation. 
At  times,  a  murky  atmosphere  appears  to  close  in  upon 
his  soul  and  damp  down  its  very  flame  to  smoke  ;  and 
all  his  faithfulness  and  patience  are  unavailing  to 
perforate  the  gloom,  and  end  only  in  the  dripping  of 
the  sad  rain.  At  another  time  he  seems  to  be  planted 
high  in  a  pure  and  lustrous  air  ;  to  look  on  nothing 
that  does  not  shine  with  a  self-light :  the  quick  stream- 
ing thoughts  flow  upon  him  like  a  morning  wind ; 
every  darkening  cloud  swims  off  to  the  far  horizon  and 
melts  into  bars  of  indigo  and  gold :  turn  his  inter- 
preting eye  where  he  will,  he  mingles  with  the  mean- 
ings of  things  ;  and  his  feet  are  on  the  mountains,  and 
his  heart  with  God. 

And  who  will  venture  to  say  that  the  highest  insight 
of  the  spirit  is  even  half  as  constant  as  the  highest 
action  of  the  mind  ?  Ask  the  saintliest  men  and  women 


The  Tides  of  the  Spirit.  1 1 

of  tliis  world,  whether  their  holy  watch  was  continuous, 
and  their  faith  and  love  as  reliable  as  their  thought ; 
and  they  will  tell  you  how  long,  even  when  they  went 
up  to  be  with  the  Saviour  on  the  mount,  have  been  the 
slumbers  of  unconsciousness,  compared  with  the  price- 
less instants  when  they  were  awake  and  beheld  his 
glory.  In  every  earnest  life,  there  are  weary  flats  to 
tread,  with  the  heavens  out  of  sight, — no  sun,  no  moon, 
— and  not  a  tint  of  light  upon  the  path  below ;  when 
the  only  guidance  is  the  faith  of  brighter  hours,  and 
the  secret  Hand  we  are  too  numb  and  dark  to  feel. 
But  to  the  meek  and  faithful  it  is  not  always  so.  Now 
and  then,  something  touches  the  dull  dream  of  sense 
and  custom,  and  the  desolation  vanishes  away :  the 
spirit  leaves  its  witness  with  us  :  the  divine  realities 
come  up  from  the  past  and  straightway  enter  the 
present :  the  ear  into  which  we  poured  our  prayer  is 
not  deaf;  the  infinite  eye  to  which  we  turned  is  not 
blind,  but  looks  in  with  answering  mercy  on  us.  The 
mystery  of  life  and  the  grievousness  of  death  are  gone : 
we  know  now  the  little  from  the  great,  the  transient 
from  the  eternal :  we  can  possess  our  souls  in  patience ; 
and  neither  the  waving  palms  and  scattered  flowers  of 
triumph  can  elate  us,  nor  the  weight  of  any  cross 
appear  too  hard  to  bear.  Tell  me  not  that  these  undu- 
lations of  the  soul  are  the  mere  instability  of  enthusiasm 
and  infirmity.  Are  they  not  found  characteristically  in 
the  greatest  and  deepest  men, — Augustine,  Tauler, 


1 2  The   Tides  of  the  Spirit. 

Luther  ?  Nay,  did  not  the  Son  of  God  himself,  the 
very  type  of  our  humanity,  experience  them  more  than 
all  ?  Did  he  not  quit  the  daily  path,  now  for  a  Trans- 
figuration, and  now  for  a  Gethsemane  ?  did  not  his 
voice  hurst  into  the  exclamation,  '  I  beheld  Satan  as 
lightning  fall  from  heaven,'  yet  also  confess,  '  Now  is 
my  soul  troubled  '  ?  And  had  he  not  his  hours  on  the 
mountain  all  night  ?  and  what,  think  you,  passed 
beneath  those  stars  ?  Ah  no !  those  intermittent 
movements  are  the  sign  of  divine  gifts,  not  of  human 
weakness.  God  has_so__arranged  the  chronometry  of 
our  spirits  that  there  shall  bo  thousands  of  silent 
moments  between  the  striking  hours. 

Nor  is  it  in  personal  experience  alone  that  we  read 
this  law.  When  we  pass  out  of  ourselves,  and  look 
abroad  over  the  Providence  of  God  in  nature  and  in 
history,  the  same  truth  appears  again.  How  it  may  be 
with  God  in  his  own  essence,  I  dare  not  presume  to 
think.  He  is  the  high  and  holy  One  who  inhabiteth 
eternity ;  and  if  you  will  say  of  him  those  awful  and 
mysterious  things  that  flow  from  the  conception  of 
Infinitude, — that  in  him  there  is  no  succession,  no 
transition,  no  emotion, — that  he  never  comes  and  goes, 
is  neither  here  nor  there, — that  he  is  the  stationary 
Now,  abiding  still,  with  nothing  past  and  nothing  future ; 
— I  hold  my  peace,  and  breathe  no  word  against  you. 
But  this  I  know,  and  in  this  I  rather  rest :  whatever 
he  may  be  in  himself,  his  manifestations  to  us  do  not 


The  Tides  of  the  Spirit.  1 3 

lie  still  before  us  in  the  sleep  of  a  frozen  sea  :  they 
break  oat  of  this  motionless  eternity  :  they  sweep  in 
mighty  tides  of  nature  and  of  history,  with  flux  and 
reflux  :  they  are  alive  with  shifting  streaks  of  light 
and  gloom ;  and  have  the  changing  voice  of  many 
waters.  And  the  clearer  and  more  spiritual  they  are, 
the  more  marked  is  this  fluctuating  character  ;  and 
they  affect  us,  not  as  the  dead  of  noon  or  the  dead  ol' 
night,  but  as  the  quick-flushing  morning  or  the  tendei 
pulses  of  the  northern  lights. 

God,  you  say,  is  eternal  and  immutable.  II  by  this 
you  mean  that  there  never  was  a  time,  and  nowhere  is 
a  place,  empty  of  his  agency,  it  is  most  true.  But  if 
you  mean  that  his  agency  is  everywhere  and  always 
equal, — that  it  cannot  be  encountered  more  or  less, — 
that  it  is  the  same  in  the  life  of  an  angel  and  in  the 
gravitation  of  a  stone, — that  there  is  for  us  no  nearer 
to  him  and  no  further  from  him, — you  give  expression, 
I  believe,  to  the  largest  falsehood  that  can  be  framed. 

Where  is  it  that  we  find  the  trace  and  illustration 
of  the  constancy  of  God  ?  To  what  realm  does  youi 
thought  fly,  when  you  would  conceive  his  unchangeable 
Infinitude  ?  You  pass  out  into  the  field  of  Space,  and 
carry  with  you  the  amplest  measure  of  imaginable 
Time :  you  take  leave  of  this  historic  earth,  as  of  a 
village  life,  and  move  among  the  kosmic  cycles  on 
whose  dial  the  little  index  of  humanity  can  scarce  play 
the  part  of  second's  hand  :  you  step  from  star  to  star, 


14  The  Tides  of  the  Spirit. 

and  go  to  meet  half-way  the  rays  that  have  heen 
travelling  to  you  for  a  million  years.  And  as  you 
observe  how  orderly,  how  punctual,  how  balanced,  how 
silent  of  its  beginning,  how  unhinting  of  an  end,  that 
night-scene  is,  you  adore  indeed  Him  "  that  bringeth  out 
this  host  by  number " ;  but  you  return  with  a  cold 
shudder  from  so  fixed  a  face  of  God,  and  take  refuge 
again  in  the  green  valleys  of  a  more  changing  and 
ephemeral  world.  The  great  physical  elements  and 
laws  which,  from  their  inexorable  regularity  and 
gigantic  sweep,  stand  before  our  thought  as  emblems 
of  the  Divine  unchangeableness,  are  the  largest,  but  also 
the  lowest  of  God's  manifestations.  Speaking  of  his 
majesty,  they  are  dumb  respecting  his  character ;  or, 
at  best,  if  they  declare  his  faithfulness,  they  pronounce 
it  stern  as  Fate,  and  drive  into  recoil  the  advances  of 
affection. 

But  let  us  not  fear.  That  immensity  takes  us  the 
very  furthest  from  him  that  we  can  go.  The  worlds  he 
has  made  out  of  nothing ;  but  man  out  of  himself:  the 
one,  accordingly,  he  has  put  under  necessity ;  the  other 
he  draws  with  cords  of  love.  In  the  one,  his  word  is 
pledged  and  bound ;  with  the  other,  his  Spirit  still  lives 
free.  Nature  is  only  his  fabric,  and  is  not  like  him  ; 
Man  is  his  child,  and  is  susceptible  of  his  image.  The 
human  characteristics  must  for  ever  stand  with  us 
as,  out  of  all  that  we  can  think,  the  very  likest  to 
him;  and  these  are  not  a  perpetual  and  unrelenting 


TJic  Tides  of  the  Spirit.  15 

mechanism ;  but  the  thinking  Reason,  the  aspiring 
Conscience,  the  elective  Will,  the  gentle  and  self-sacri- 
ficing Affection.  And  when  these  speak  to  our  hearts 
as  his  witnesses,  we  have  our  eye  upon  a  more  inter- 
mittent as  well  as  a  higher  glory,  than  can  be  found 
in  the  great  physical  laws  :  for,  as  the  Spirit  bloweth 
where  it  listeth,  the  life  of  men  and  angels  has  at  once 
a  freer  and  diviner  movement  than  the  travels  of  a  sun- 
beam or  the  revolution  of  a  star.  Nor  is  it  in  all  men, 
or  in  the  whole  of  human  history,  that  it  is  given  us  to 
trace  the  impress  of  his  Mind.  However  true  it  is  that 
there  is  no  private  heart  to  which  he  is  quite  strange, 
yet  it  is  not  in  all  alike  that  the  sanctities  of  his  agency 
visibly  appear.  We  see  and  own  him  in  proportion  to 
the  nobleness  and  beauty  of  the  lives  which  he  inspires ; 
and  it  is  only  now  and  then,  at  the  great  crises  of 
society,  that  the  common  lavel  of  the  human  self  and 
the  finite  understanding  is  transcended,  and  sages, 
prophets,  saints  rise  above  their  nature  and  become  the 
organs  of  a  Spirit  not  their  own.  I  presume  not  to 
say  hoiv  it  is  God  takes  up  his  abode  with  us ;  where, 
across  the  melting  colours  the  precise  line  should  be 
drawn  that  divides  the  human  from  the  divine.  But 
wherever  he  so  dwells  with  the  soul  as  to  impart  his 
own  character,  and  lift  before  our  eye  the  beauty  of 
holiness,  it  is  his  supreme  expression,  as  it  is  his 
rarest.  Accordingly  it  is  this  which  he  selects  for  the 
supernatural  revelation  of  himself  which  stands  unique, 


1 6  The  Tides  of  the  Spirit. 

— "  the  Word  made  flesh," — the  divine  life  humanised, 
and  the  human  glorified, — the  blending  of  both  in 
communion  and  reconciliation.  In  that  sacrifice  cul- 
minate the  intermittent  visitations  of  God :  it  was  not 
tidal  only :  it  is  once  for  all ;  and  as  it  was  supreme,  it 
was  solitary  too.  As  all  the  special  goodness,  grace, 
and  truth  of  historic  men  give  pauses  of  blessed  rest, 
and  are  not  the  week-day,  but  the  sabbath  of  the  world  ; 
so  is  the  divine  perfectness  of  Christ  the  sabbath  of 
sabbaths,  the  solemn  jubilee  of  our  humanity. 

Be  assured  then  that  in  your  ancient  usages  of 
seasonal  and  local  worship,  in  seeking  here  to  meet 
at  intervals  the  high  tides  of  God's  spirit,  you  are  in 
harmony  with  his  sublimest  Providence, — with  a  law 
of  variation  transcending  any  physical  uniformity  over 
which  it  sweeps.  Eeverence  the  holy  custom,  shelter 
from  heedless  slight  the  living  impulse,  that  week  by 
week  calls  you  hither  to  remember,  to  aspire,  to  pray. 
Bring  only  the  pure,  lowly,  childlike  heart,  tender  to 
everything  except  the  sins  you  must  confess, — full  of 
hope  for  the  world  and  trust  in  God;  spread  out  an 
eager  and  a  gentle  spirit  for  the  dropping  of  fruitful 
seeds  from  Holy  "Writ  and  saintly  hymn ;  freshen  the 
fading  vow  of  self-sacrificing  love ;  and  your  worship 
here  will  not  only  resemble  his  who,  in  fulness  of  the 
Spirit,  "  went,  as  his  custom  was,  into  the  synagogue 
on  the  sabbath  day,"  but  prepare  for  a  higher  com- 
munion, where  "  your  life  is  hid  with  him  in  God." 


, 


flU^«*-».  K>  *e  ^* 

*^**TA* 

ytt^i^m 


rAM^*"**1  (T**^^**^» 

IM***   *^j>^*C*-*  - 


MATT.  vi.  33. 

'•'Seek  ye  first  the  kingdom  of  God  and  his  righteousness;  and  all 
these  things  sball  be  added  unto  you." 

THOUGH  the  mountain  slope  may  still  be  found  on 
which  these  words  were  uttered,  the  figure  of  Jesus,  as 
he  sat  on  a  basaltic  block  and  taught,  is  seen  by  us 
only  across  the  chasm  in  which  eighteen  centuries  are 
sunk :  the  diminished  picture  rises  in  the  distance, 
like  a  sunny  knoll  swelling  out  of  a  sea  of  darkness ; 
"and  the  voice  reaches  us,  like  the  intonations,  rather 
seen  than  heard,  of  a  vision  or  a  dream.  Had  we  been 
on  the  other  side  of  the  separating  gulf,  and  mingled 
with  the  peasant  audience,  and  pressed  the  actual  grass 
which  is  now  but  a  verdure  of  our  thought ;  had  we  felt 
the  upland  breath  of  that  autumn  evening,  on  which 
the  great  Teacher's  fervent  accents  rose  or  died  away ; 
had  we  seen  the  lengthening  shadows  flung  from  that 


1 8         Seek  first  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

height  upon  the  lake  below,  bisecting  its  blue  waters, 
and  creeping  towards  the  white  sails,  the  shelving 
beach,  the  lighted  rocks,  of  the  remoter  shore ;  had 
we  marked  the  eye  of  Jesus  invited  by  the  note  of 
birds  wheeling  overhead,  and  caught  his  instant  words, 
"Behold  the  fowls  of  the  air;"  or,  as  he  pointed  to 
the  pastures  brilliant  with  their  golden  arnaryllis,  heard 
his  praise  of  the  lilies  that  toil  not ;  we  should  have 
owned  that  the  heaven  above  was  less  deep  in  beauty 
than  the  divine  soul  before  us :  ashamed  of  our  mean 
cares  under  the  Providence,  he  interpreted,  we  should 
have  filled  our  evening  with  truth  and  trust  inspired 
from  him  :  we  should  have  felt  that  we  had  been  with 
one  who  stood  alone  among  the  sons  of  God ;  and  who 
rose  above  all  earthly  spirits,  as  the  snowy  peak  of 
Lebanon,  now  crimson  with  the  sunken  sun,  towered 
above  the  dark  world  below.  Who  can  wonder,  if  many 
a  loving  Mary,  many  an  ardent  Peter,  many  a  truc- 
soulcd  John,  took  the  vow  from  that  hour,  to  "  seek 
first  the  kingdom  of  God,"  and  believe  that  "  all  other 
things  would  be  added  unto  them  "  ? 

We  receive  these  words,  however,  amid  a  scene  quite 
different ;  and  it  is  well  if  their  truth  and  beauty,  felt 
as  they  look  up  at  us  from  the  page  of  Scripture,  do 
not  cease  to  live  as  realities  in  our  conscience,  and 
become  ideal  and  historical  with  the  time  that  gave 
them  birth.  Does  this  ranking  of  human  aims, — first 
spiritual  good,  then  temporal  necessities, — describe  the 


Seek  first  the  Kingdom  of  God.          19 

actual  order  of  our  prevalent  pursuits,  or  even  the 
arrangement  of  our  habitual  convictions  ?  Carry  the 
precept  in  your  memory,  as  you  walk  the  city,  musing 
on  the  contents  of  that  hum  of  voices.  Take  it  to  the 
dock  side,  as  you  listen  to  the  roll  of  traffic,  and  think 
of  the  history  of  all  its  wealth.  Eecall  it  in  the  mill, 
as  you.  reflect  to  what  end  it  is  that  all  the  giant 
mechanism  heaves  and  whirls  incessantly.  If  all  this, 
it  may  well  occur  to  you,  is  just  for  the  things  that  are 
"  added  unto  "  men  with  scarce  a  thought  of  theirs, 
how  transcendently  strenuous  must  be  their  primary 
pursuit,  to  which  this  is  but  a  trustful  leisure  !  Assum- 
ing this  scene,  with  all  its  bewildering  intensity,  as  a 
sample  of  their  indifference,  what  must  be  the  measure 
of  their  holy  zeal !  Alas !  you  well  know  that  those 
burning  aspirations  in  reserve  do  not  exist ;  that  the 
stir  around  about  you  belongs,  not  to  the  secondary,  but 
to  the  chief  business,  of  men  ; — to  the  ends  that  rule, 
not  to  those  that  serve,  in  human  life ;  and  that  far 
from  being  here  amid  its  cooler  temperature,  you  stand 
In  the  very  focus  of  its  most  fervid  heats.  Nay,  you 
will  perhaps  think,  that  it  not  only  is  so,  but  really 
oiifjht  to  be  so  ;  that,  after  all,  man's  first  great  struggle 
must  be  to  maintain  his  footing  upon  this  world ;  that 
the  means  of  life  cannot  but  take  precedence  of  the 
rules  of  living ;  that  the  Christian  law  of  trust,  though 
quite  in  place  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  is  positively 
too  romantic  for  the  warehouse  and  the  street.  Men 

c  2 


2O         Seek  first  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

must  be  allowed  to  make  sure  of  physical  support ;  and 
then  will  he  time  enough  to  look  after  their  spiritual 
nature  :  let  them  "  seek  first  "  what  they  are  to  eat  and 
drink ;  and,  this  once  secured,  the  kingdom  of  God  may 
be  "  added  unto  "  it. 

•  This  style  of  sentiment  is  not  likely  to  appear  less 
reasonable,  when  you  turn  to  those  who,  from  horror  at 
its  irreligion,  have  fled  from  the  world  which  it  governs, 
and  resolved  to  live  out  a  sincere  Christianity,  in  abdica- 
tion of  all  the  pursuits  of  human  appetite  and  affection. 
Far  up  in  Alpine  heights,  or  in  cloistered  silence  in 
the  heart  of  cities,  you  may  find  fraternities  and  sister- 
hoods, renouncing  everything  except  the  kingdom  of 
God,  aspiring  to  it  by  the  path  of  a  holy  austerity,  and 
submitting  cheerfully  to  a  self-crucifixion  of  every  affec- 
tion below  the  standard  of  an  angelic  sanctity.  But 
this  attempt  at  entire  dedication  to  Heaven  produces  a 
form  of  character  which  is  far  from  satisfying  our  con- 
ception of  a  Christian  symmetry  of  soul.  Between 
fear  of  the  abyss  and  aspiration  to  the  skies,  the  blessed 
earth,  our  appointed  place  that  lies  in  the  midst,  is  too 
lightly  touched,  or  even  contemptuously  disowned :  the 
quest  of  God  is  too  like  a  heartless  flight  from  man ; 
and  it  would  be  strange  if  the  law  of  Christ, — the 
friend  of  publicans  and  sinners, — were  suited  only  to 
the  exceptional  case  of  the  saintly  recluse,  and  incapable 
of  being  acted  out  by  us  face  to  face,  amid  the  actual 
throng  and  press  of  life,  without  flight  from  our  tempta- 


Seek  first  the  Kingdom  of  God.          2 1 

tions,  or  suicide  of  our  nature.  Christianity  no  doubt 
would  be  a  blessed  thing,  if  it  merely  snatched  a  noble 
few  by  diviner  attractions  from  a  world  heavy  with 
incurable  corruption,  and  drew  them  into  its  sanctuary 
with  the  awful  invitation,  "  Ephraim  is  joined  with  idols, 
let  him  alone."  But  there  is  no  true  reflection  of  its 
great  Author's  spirit,  till  the  Church  and  the  World  are 
not  two,  but  one, — the  inner  and  the  outer  courts  of 
the  same  earnest  worship ;  till  the  evil  that  is  abroad 
is  not  despaired  of  but  confronted  and  assailed,  and 
disciples  have  the  heart  to  say,  "  This  earth  is  by  no 
means  Satan's,  but  wholly  God's ;  come,  let  us  chase 
away  these  demons  of  darkness,  and  win  it  back  for 
him ;  "  till  religion,  instead  of  shrinking  within  the 
altar  rails,  and  lighting  there  a  lonely  lamp  of  incense, 
can  turn  its  radiant  face  upon  the  people,  penetrate 
their  open  life  with  its  flash,  and  shatter  and  spoil  the 
false  idols  of  their  hearts,  and  in  all  things  reconcile 
and  fuse  together  the  human  and  the  holy. 

But  how  can  this  be,  you  will  say  ?  what  means  does 
Christianity  afford  of  blending  the  secular  and  spiritual 
extremes  of  character,  and,  by  union  of  these  opposites, 
completing  the  healthful  circuit  of  our  moral  power  ? 
Hitherto  it  seems  to  have  kept  them  wider  apart  than 
ever  ;  and  while  the  minds  at  either  end  appear  to  have 
some  force  of  Reason,  it  is  in  the  one  case  Reason 
degraded  into  too  gross  a  Sense,  in  the  other  raised  to 
too  ethereal  a  Sanctity. 


2  2          5V£/£  _/£;'.?/  ///£  Kingdom  of  God. 


There  is  no  juster  complaint  against  human  exaggera- 
tion than  this.  And,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  the  error 
of  the  two  parties,  however  contrasted  in  result,  is  one 
and  the  same.  They  hoth  feel,  what  the  language  of 
Jesus  emphatically  states,  that  there  is  some  sort  of 
opposition  between  the  living  for  worldly  and  living  for 
spiritual  good.  But  they  altogether  mistake  the  nature 
of  this  opposition.  They  fancy  it  to  consist  in  this; 
that  the  two  orders  of  pursuit  have  quite  different 
spheres  of  work  ;  that  what  the  secular  man  docs,  the 
religious  man  must  avoid  ;  that  the  quest  of  temporal 
advantages  is  one  kind  of  business,  tasking  our  industry 
with  an  appropriate  set  of  occupations  ;  the  quest  of 
heavenly  sanctity  another  kind  of  business,  prescribing 
occupations  almost  perfectly  distinct.  Accordingly  there 
are  employments  which  this  pernicious  moral  super- 
stition has  branded  with  an  equivocal  mark  of  irreligion  ; 
and  other  employments  which  are  supposed  to  constitute 
the  substance  of  the  true  Christian  obedience.  The 
provision  and  government  of  house  and  home,  the  daily 
meal,  the  social  hour  of  recreation  or  of  mirth  ;  the 
transaction  of  private  business,  or  the  control  of  public 
affairs  ;  the  enlargement  of  knowledge,  the  practice  of 
art,  the  pursuit  of  truth;  —  in  short,  all  the  charac- 
teristic engagements  of  the  citizen,  the  merchant,  the 
politician,  the  student,  are  conceived  to  lie  upon  the 
secular  side  of  human  life,  and  to  constitute  our  tempta- 
tions to  evil  rather  than  our  opportunities  for  good.  On 


Seek  first  the  Kingdom  of  God.         23 

the  other  hand,  works  of  charity  to  the  needy,  and 
visits  of  conversion  to  the  guilty;  the  exercises  of 
private  devotion  and  of  public  prayer ;  the  contem- 
plation of  saintly  examples,  and  the  accumulation  of 
scriptural  impressions  and  unearthly  thoughts  ;  direct 
and  broad  conversation  about  things  invisible,  and 
comparisons  of  inward  experience,  are  supposed  to 
constitute  the  religious  staple  of  life,  from  which  every 
distraction  is  a  humiliating  concession  to  the  low  and 
shameful  necessities  of  a  fallen  nature.  Hence,  the 
popular  conception  of  Heaven  wholly  excludes  all  idea 
of  activity  and  thought,  and  admits  nothing  but  a  per- 
petuity of  positive  worship.  Hence  too,  when  a  man 
of  this  narrow  religion  becomes  entangled  in  affairs  of 
the  world,  he  carries  into  them  no  clear  calm  feeling  of 
sacred  obligation,  to  guide  him  in  the  path  of  noble 
uprightness ;  but  rather  a  conscience  half  flurried  to 
find  himself  there  at  all,  amid  things  too  profane  to 
come  within  his  province  of  duties  :  his  faith  can  make 
nothing  of  such  sinful  materials,  except  resolve  to 
escape  from  them  as  fast  as  it  can  ;  and  need  I  say,  that 
one  who,  with  this  feeling,  gets,  with  no  small  stake  at 
issue,  into  an  unmanageable  Devil's  world,  is  very  apt 
to  let  Satan  have  his  own  way,  in  despair  of  battling 
with  him  on  his  own  ground  ?  And  hence,  finally,  he 
who  with  such  belief,  is  determined  never  to  capitulate, 
has  no  resource  but  the  hermit's ;  to  quit  the  scene  of 
human  energy  and  abandon  the  cares  for  subsistence, 


24         Seek  first  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

and  going  about  some  diviner  work,  expect  the  ravens 
to  come  and  feed  him,  while  he  sits  still.  This  he 
calls  a  trust  in  Providence ;  though  it  is  manifestly  a 
contempt  of  the  established  course  of  Providence,  and 
a  trust  only  in  that  which  would  directly  violate  it. 
He  calls  it  a  quest  of  the  kingdom  of  God ;  though  it 
is  a  flight  from  the  realm  of  allotted  duty,  and  a 
renounced  allegiance  of  natural  obligations.  He  calls 
it  an  emancipation  from  all  thought  of  the  morrow ; 
yet  it  is  plainly  the  surest  way  of  filling  the  mind  with 
real  anxiety  about  "  the  meat  that  perisheth,"  and  of 
engaging  the  whole  religious  affections,  as  in  a  game- 
ster's play,  in  the  precarious  question  of  its  failure  or 
supply. 

In  fact,  the  godless  lover  of  gain,  and  the  gainless 
lover  of  God  are  fanatics  both,  taking  hold  of  the  oppo- 
site ends  of  the  same  falsehood.  And  the  truth  which 
suffices  to  rebuke  them  both,  is  this ;  that  the  kingdom 
of  God  is  not  a  business,  set  up  in  rivalry  with  worldly 
business;  but  a  divine  law  regulating,  and  a  divine 
temper  pervading,  the  pursuits  of  worldly  business. 
It  does  not  change  the  materials,  but  the  form  and 
spirit,  of  our  life.  It  leaves  our  outward  occupations 
essentially  what  they  were,  and  opens  to  us  still  the 
domestic  hearth,  the  public  council,  the  field,  the  city, 
and  the  ocean,  as  the  sphere  of  all  our  work :  but  it 
makes  us  conscious  of  the  different  orders  of  desire 
and  affection  that  may  guide  us  through  all  these ;  the 


Seek  first  the  Kingdom  of  God.         25 

brutal  appetencies,  the  shrewd  selfishness,  the  instinc- 
tive kindliness,  the  sense  of  justice,  the  love  of  goodness, 
the  aspiration  after  the  perfectness  of  God,  with  which 
the  very  same  employments  may  be  debased  or  conse- 
crated. The  feeling  of  divine  duty  is  not  a  new  faculty 
of  action  added  to  our  mind,  having  a  distinct  set  of 
objects  indifferent  to  us  before :  all  the  impulsive 
forces  that  send  us  on  to  our  theatre  and  take  us  to 
our  work  are  instinctive  gifts  of  nature,  neither  more 
nor  fewer  in  the  sinner  or  saint.  But  when  devout 
Conscience  finds  entrance  among  them,  it  sets  them  in 
the  relative  order  of  their  ranks  ;  forbids  the  scramble 
of  eager  and  unsettled  claims  ;  commands  lazy  appetite, 
already  seated  at  the  feast,  to  get  up  and  gird  itself  and 
serve ;  sends  impudent  ambition  to  take  the  lowest 
place ;  and  says  to  truthful  love  driven  to  the  door, 
"  Friend,  come  up  higher."  It  reveals  to  us  the 
comparative  worth  and  authority  of  the  several  sources 
of  action  within  us :  it  is  simply,  indeed,  as  the  word 
denotes,  the  consciousness  of  this  ;  and  is  therefore  not 
properly  a  separate  principle  of  the  soul,  but  the 
inherent  knowledge  of  their  own  place  in  the  scale  of 
excellence  which  attends  the  exercise  of  all  our  springs 
of  action.  It  is  not  a  power,  but  a  perception,  and 
performs  a  function  judicial,  not  executive.  No  man, 
accordingly,  can  with  any  precision  be  said  to  act  from 
conscience :  he  acts  from  some  primitive  instinct  or 
acquired  affection :  but  two  of  these  may  at  the  same 


26         Seek  first  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

instant  be  candidates  for  the  possession  of  his  Will ; 
and  when  he  puts  aside  the  one  which  he  knows  to  be 
the  meaner,  and  obeys  the  other  because  he  feels  it  to 
be  the  nobler,  we  signify  the  fact  by  the  loose  phrase, 
he  acts  from  conscience.  It  is  plain  here  that  if  there 
were  no  natural  springs  of  volition,  Conscience,  left 
alone,  would  be  wholly  unproductive :  it  would  be  in 
possession  of  a  sinecure,  and  its  occupation  would  be 
gone.  And  what  we  thus  say  of  Conscience,  we  say 
of  the  kingdom  of  God ;  for  I  know  of  no  religion, 
natural  or  revealed,  which  is  not  a  development  of  this 
divine  element  in  our  souls ;  an  opening  before  it,  by 
the  apparition  of  some  new  greatness,  of  a  higher  and 
yet  a  higher  than  even  its  highest  was  before ;  a  total 
passing  away  of  worship  into  infinitude  ;  and  a  sense  of 
the  sleepless  watch  of  the  Holiest  around  the  path  of 
life. 

From  this  view  of  our  nature  it  follows  that  spiritual 
good  is  not  a  new  object  given  us  by  our  religion,  but 
only  the  regulated  and  proportioned  pursuit  of  natural 
good,  in  entire  deference  to  the  relative  excellence  of  its 
several  kinds.  Original  instinct  is  altogether  blind 
except  to  its  own  particular  object,  which  it  pursues  as 
if  it  were  the  universe  :  hunger  seizes  upon  food,  anger 
strikes  an  obstacle,  pity  flies  to  suffering,  with  unre- 
flecting impulse,  seeing  nothing  else,  and  making  no 
more  estimate  of  its  own  end  than  the  migratory  bird 
of  the  seasons  whose  changes  it  obeys.  Each  instinct 


Seek  first  the  Kingdom  of  God.         2  7 

is  ^sufficient  for  its  own  end,  and  for  nothing  more; 
lights  our  way  and  impels  our  activity,  to  its  appro- 
priate good,  wholly  regardless  of  the  existence  of  any 
other ;  nothing  can  he  added  to  it,  nothing  can  he  taken 
from  it,  without  impairing  its  perfection,  and  turning  it 
from  an  element  of  health  into  a  seat  of  disease.  Man, 
moreover,  not  only  has  instincts,  hut  knows  them,  and 
is  able  so  to  compare  them  as  to  perceive  which  is 
higher,  which  lower  :  he  not  only  knoivs  them,  but 
rules  them,  not  letting  each  take  its  chance  of  becoming 
uppermost,  but  exercising  preference  among  them, 
according  to  the  divine  right  and  rank  of  each.  As  this 
perception  of  relative  worth  among  the  springs  of 
conduct  is  what  we  mean  by  Conscience,  so  the  con- 
sequent power  of  practical  choice  among  them  is  what 
we  mean  by  Will.  And  spiritual  good  is  nothing  but 
the  perfect  consonance  between  these  two  :  it  exists 
where  the  moral  vision  is  clear  and  wide,  the  moral 
volition  quick  and  strong,  and  what  the  one  discerns, 
the  other  executes.  The  proper  and  sole -appointed 
function  of  the  "Will  is,  not  to  form  a  partnership  with 
any  instinct,  and  add  itself  on  as  a  fresh  energy  to  its 
pursuit ;  not  to  rise  up  in  rivalry  to  instinct,  and  by 
counterpoise  subtract  something  from  its  force;  but, 
letting  the  quantities  of  our  nature  alone,  to  guide  us 
by  its  qualities;  to  make  a  true  choice  among  the 
natural  principles,  when  two  or  more  are  knocking  at 
the  gate  of  entrance  to  our  life. 


28         Seek  first  the  Kingdom  of  Cod. 

In  what  then  consists  the  opposition  between  the 
pursuit  of  natural  and  the  pursuit  of  spiritual  good  ? — 
the  desire  of  physical  supplies,  and  the  aspiration  after 
the  kingdom  of  God  ?  It  lies  in  this  : — He  who  seeks 
after  "  what  he  shall  eat  and  what  he  shall  drink  "  is 
one  whose  chief  conscious  aim  is  to  get  suck  things: 
He  who  seeks  first  "  the  kingdom  of  God  "  is  one  whose 
chief  conscious  aim  is  not  to  get  them  unworthily. 
The  one  throws  his  whole  reflective  and  directing 
powers  into  the  work  of  instinct,  madly  enhancing,  yet 
intellectually  guiding,  its  intensity;  infuriating  the 
chase,  yet  giving  it  precision  ;  and  turning  the  innocent 
tendency  of  the  creature,  into  the  clever  passion  of  the 
demon.  The  other  applies  his  thoughtfulness  to  the 
control  of  his  instincts,  and  the  establishment  among 
them  of  the  true  divine  subordination  of  the  lower  to 
the  higher.  He  never  quits  the  helm  to  feed  the  fire  ; 
to  steer  the  good  ship,  and  not  to  double  the  tension  of 
the  steam,  is  the  allotted  office  of  his  skill.  He  knows 
where  his  real  danger  lies ;  not  in  having  appetites  so 
weak  as  to  need  provocatives,  but  in  not  duly  feeling  the 
humble  place  they  occupy ;  in  sinking  down  among 
them  out  of  sight  of  the  higher  principles  of  action ; 
in  absolutely  forgetting,  in  the  delirium  of  pursuit,  the 
noble  possibilities  stretched  along  his  upper  range  of 
powers ;  and,  deceived  by  mere  mental  light,  lapsing 
into  moral  darkness  the  most  profound ;  with  eye,  like 
Lucifer's  for  ages  fallen  from  Heaven,  so  accustomed  to 


Seek  first  the  Kingdom  of  God.          29 

lurid  fires  and  crimsoned  steams  that  the  white  and 
virgin  beams  of  the  morning  star,  and  all  the  cool 
silence  of  the  skies,  are  unimaginable  quite.  In  thus 
confining  himself  to  the  regulation  of  his  natural  aims, 
and  the  studious  guardianship  of  the  divine  rights,  so 
apt  to  be  forgotten,  of  their  highest  ranks,  he  exercises 
a  genuine  trust  in  Providence,  the  very  trust  which 
Jesus  enjoins.  The  worldly  man  is  not  content  with 
the  prompting  of  natural  appetite :  it  is  not  strong 
enough  for  him  to  rely  on  its  doing  enough  for  him  ; 
and  he  must  add  to  it  all  the  deliberative  energies  of  ^  » 
his  Will.  The  fanatic  hates  and  fears  his  appetites  :p  i- 
so  long  as  they  exist  at  all,  they  are  too  strong  for  his 
repose  and  will  do  too  much  for  him ;  and  for  their 
annihilation  he  hurls  against  them  all  the  force  of 
Resolution.  The  Christian  trusts  his  natural  appetites 
to  find  him  all  needful  physical  good  :  believing  them 
neither  an  over  provision  nor  an  under  provision,  he  lets 
their  amount  alone,  and  directs  all  his  conscious  aims 
to  a  higher  point,  the  maintenance  of  the  nobler  affec- 
tions in  their  loftier  place.  Were  all  these  higher 
powers  of  his  nature  wholly  lifted  off  and  put  away, 
he  would  cease  to  be  a  man,  and  would  be  simply 
dropped,  where  the  creatures  below  him  now  stand, 
upon  the  ground  of  unconscious  animal  instinct :  and 
would  he  not,  though  deprived  of  insight  into  himself, 
be  safe  as  they?  Would  he  not,  like  them,  be  sup- 
ported still,  without  knowledge  and  without  a  care  ? 


30         Seek  first  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

And  if  his  instincts  would  suffice  him  then,  and  procure 
him  what  he  wants  with  unreflecting  simplicity,  being 
incapable  of  solicitude,  they  may  well  dispense  with 
thought  and  study  now,  and  refuse  the  burden  of 
anxiety.  He  may  confide  in  the  inevitable  activity  of 
these  primitive  springs  of  his  nature,  by  which  Heaven, 
"knowing  that,"  in  common  with  other  creatures,  we 
"have  need  of"  physical  good,  has  provided  for  its 
adequate  supply.  God  feeds  us,  precisely  as  he  feeds 
the  fowls  of  the  air,  not  by  the  suppression  of  instinct, 
but  by  its  natural  and  unconscious  skill  ;  —  a  skill  so 
sure,  so  perfect,  if  we  will  only  believe  it,  as  to  set  us 
at  liberty  for  higher  solicitudes  and  a  more  consecrated 
watch.  And  so  the  rule  of  our  divine  Teacher  comes 
out  perfect  and  unimpeachable.  The  more  unconscious 
(i.e.  without  thought)  our  pursuit  of  physical  good,  the 
better  for  the  ends  of  life  :  the  more  distinct  and 
conscious  our  pursuit  of  moral  and  spiritual  good,  the 
nearer  are  we  to  the  kingdom  of  God.  The  whole 
energy  of  our  Will  may  be  bent  on  the  maintenance  of 
a  divine  order,  proportion,  and  harmony,  among  the 
principles  of  action.  This  may  be  our  sole  earnest 
concern  ;  the  engagement  of  heart,  in  favour  of  which 
we  may  resign  all  thought  for  the  morrow,  —  for  the 
morrow  of  time,  or  even,  I  would  add,  the  morrow  of 
eternity. 


^nju^..Aji 


m. 

Jlimjbom  0f 


n. 


MATT.  vi.  33. 

"  Seek  ye  first  the  kingdom  of  God  and  bis  righteousness ;  and  ail 
these  things  shall  be  added  unto  you." 

IN  those  teachings  of  Christ  which  appear  to  the  wor- 
shipper of  "  sober  sense  "  most  strongly  tinged  with 
enthusiasm,  a  higher  Eeason  perpetually  discovers  a 
singular  exactitude  of  truth,  which  spoils  them  for  the 
purposes  of  the  fanatic,  and  dispenses  with  all  apology 
for  their  "  poetical  licence."  The  passage,  whose 
general  lesson  I  have  taken  for  my  text,  is  not  unfre- 
quently  extolled,  in  the  first  instance,  for  its  beauty, 
and  then  frittered  away  as  mere  hyperbole.  To  minds 
sincere  and  pure,  nothing  can  be  more  offensive  than 
this  kind  of  praise  ;  as  if  there  could  be  the  beauty  it 
applauds,  except  for  the  truth  which  it  denies;  as 'if 
sentiments  could  be  fair  to  look  at  which  it  would  be 


32         Seek  first  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

ridiculous  to  live  by.  It  makes  a  true  heart  sorrowful, 
or  even  indignant,  to  hear  the  light  way  in  which  rules 
of  life  and  forms  of  character  are  sometimes  discussed 
as  objects  of  taste,  without  the  least  apprehension  of 
them  as  matters  of  obligation.  Yet  by  all  that  we 
morally  admire,  we  are  practically  bound.  Human 
duties  are  not  a  mere  picture  gallery,  in  which  we  may 
loiter  with  our  critic's  glass ;  or  a  histrionic  stage  whose 
representations  may  delight  us,  while  we  sit  still ;  but 
great  and  solemn  realities,  presented  on  a  scene  where 
every  spectator  practices,  beneath  the  eye  of  heaven,  the 
divine  art  which  he  beholds ;  where  to  discern  an  ex- 
cellence is  to  receive  a  trust ;  and  ideal  admirations  are 
the  source  of  actual  necessities.  Whoever  feels  that 
there  is  aTi  irresistible  attraction  in  Christ's  doctrine  of 
repose  on  Providence,  ought  to  distrust  and  disbelieve 
himself,  when  tempted  to  explain  it  into  metaphor :  he 
is  bound  to  regard  such  propensity  as  the  dictate  of  his 
lower  mind  contradicting  the  knowledge  of  the  higher ; 
and  to  search,  with  more  open  eye,  for  the  divine  wisdom 
that  escapes  him  now.  Beauty  can  no  more  exist  in 
the  moral  world  without  truth,  than  without  liyld  in  the 
natural. 

In  Christ's  divine  parable  of  trust,  a  contrast  is  drawn 
between  that  which  men  must  seek  for  themselves,  and 
that  which  they  must  leave  God  to  provide.  The  one 
great  end  of  all  their  active  powers,  is  moral  and 
spiritual  good  ;  while  for  temporal  provision  there  is  to 


Seek  first  the  Kingdom  of  God.          33 

"he  a  surrender  of  themselves  into  the  Divine  hand. 
This  doctrine,  which  is  a  truly  characteristic  principle 
of  his  religion,  is  treated,  I  fear,  as  a  piece  of  pious 
extravagance ;  and  is  dismissed  with  the  reflection  that 
really  it  is  out  of  the  question  for  men,  hungry,  thirsty, 
domestic,  social,  not  planted  in  any  pastoral  Eden,  but 
dwelling  in  crowded  cities,  to  think  of  living  like  the 
lilies.  And  so  it  would  be,  if  by  this  were  meant,  any 
idle  standing  still,  to  subsist  on  air  or  whatever  else  the 
heavens  might  send.  But  see  how  far  is  any  such  poor 
thought  from  the  mind  of  Christ.  Does  he  mean  that 
nothing  should  be  done  for  subsistence  ?  Only  look  at 
the  example  he  offers  of  that  implicit  reliance  which  he 
enjoins  on  the  Divine  provision.  He  bids  us  "  behold  the 
fowls  of  the  air";  and  says,  that  "  Godfeedeth  them." 
Do  they,  then,  stay  at  home,  and  do  nothing,  expecting 
crumbs  of  manna  to  drop  from  rich  tables  in  the  skies  ? 
Are  they  found,  empty  of  all  appetency,  regardless  of 
the  changing  year,  and  hanging  ever  upon  miracle  ? 
Why,  their  whole  existence  is  a  continued  quest  after 
that  physical  good  which  is  their  true  and  only  end ; 
and  to  pilfer  the  garden  and  the  field,  to  skim  and  sip 
the  stream,  to  dress  their  plumage  with  finer  gloss,  and 
sing  the  song  of  glad  repletion,  is  their  work  from  morn 
to  night.  What  eager  industry  flutters  in  the  spring 
around  the  skirts  of  the  plantation,  gathering  the  bits 
and  brakes  scattered  for  them  by  the  winter's  storm  ! 
What  busy  preparation,  at  autumn's  first  cnill  wind, 

D 


34         Seek  first  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

wheels  and  musters  overhead,  for  the  long  fiigiit  over 
Southern  seas,  the  swift  cheering  on  the  slow,  and  the 
young  wing  supporting  the  old  !  What  studious  watch, 
under  the  semblance  of  flashing  sport,  does  the  home- 
loving  swallow  keep !  And  is  not  this  truly  called,  a 
feeding  of  the  creatures  by  their  Maker  ?  Is  it  not  li  is 
hand  that  is  opened,  when  they  are  filled  with  good  ? 
Yes;  only,  "that  which  he  giveth  them,  they  gather  •  " 
he  supplies  their  wants,  not  without  activity  of  theirs, 
but  by  means  of  it ;  not  by  casual  miracle,  but  by  con- 
stant law ;  by  putting  his  skill  within  them,  as  well  as 
spreading  his  affluence  without. 

But  how  then,  you  will  say,  can  their  life  be  quoted, 
as  rebuking  ours?  If  their  dependence  upon  God  con- 
sists in  providing  for  themselves,  what  else  do  we  ? 
And  why  should  the  same  thing  be  reproached  as  world- 
liness  in  us  which  is  admired  as  pure  trust  in  them  ? 

The  answer  is  plain  ;  it  is  not  the  same  thing  that  is 
thought  fair  in  the  creature,  and  base  in  us.  It  is  only 
in  the  mere  outward  act  of  self-provision  that  they 
are  alike ;  and,  so  far,  they  are  not  at  all  condemned. 
But'  this  one  act  may  correspond,  in  the  two  cases,  to 
states  of  the  internal  nature  wholly  different  :  the 
springs  of  activity,  where  alone  any  moral  quality 
resides,  may  have  no  resemblance  ;  and  the  more,  in 
this  respect,  man  can  restore  himself  to  the  condition 
of  the  "  fowls  of  the  air,"  the  more  does  he  fulnl  the 
ends  of  his  responsible  existence. 


Seek  first  the  Kingdom  of  God.          35 

The  animals  are  impelled  by  an  unreflecting  instinct 
to  pursue  the  good  appropriate  to  their  nature.  By  a 
relation,  wholly  incomprehensible  to  us,  between  the 
feeling  of  want  in  them  and  the  existence  of  supply  in 
the  world,  these  two  things,  like  the  poles  of  an  electric 
system,  find  each  other  out  and  meet.  The  appetite  of 
the  creature  is  not  merely  a  passive  sensation  of  un- 
easiness, but  a  positive  guidance  to  activity ;  of  which 
we  can  only  say  this  one  thing,  that  it  is  a  blind  ten- 
dency, not  an  intelligent  foresight, — an  abandonment  to 
propensity,  not  an  exercise  of  Will.  And  thus,  while 
the  insect  and  the  bird  continually  provide  for  the 
morrow,  they  take  no  thought  for  the  morrow :  wholly 
surrendered  to  the  infallible  direction  implanted  in  their 
nature,  they  are  landed  in  good  after  good,  and  accom- 
plish end  after  end,  of  which  assuredly  they  had  no  pre- 
conception. Hence  it  is  that  their  happy  maintenance 
is  held  to  be  divine ;  for  though  the  agility  which 
achieves  it  is  theirs,  the  skill  and  forethought,  absent 
from  them,  remain  with  God.  Mind  and  volition  there 
must  be  to  produce  works  of  order  and  beauty  and  en- 
joyment surpassing  our  highest  strength  and  art ;  and 
failing  as  they  manifestly  do  in  the  creatures  below  us, 
we  refer  them  to  the  Creator  above  us.  To  live  then 
the  simple  life  of  lower  natures,  is  to  be  fed  by  the 
hand  of  God ;  and  by  its  unconscious  surrender  to 
involuntary,  though  internal,  guidance,  becomes  the 
negative  type  of  perfect  trust. 

D  2 


36         Seek  first  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

Now  man  has  within  him  the  whole  apparatus  of  in- 
stincts belonging  to  inferior  beings  ;  just  as  perfect  for 
their  proper  ends;  just  as  mysterious  in  their  detec- 
tion of  the  means ;  so  that  if  he  were  endowed  with 
nothing  more  than  this  system  of  animal  direction,  his 
subsistence,  his  habitation,  and  all  the  external  con- 
ditions of  his  life,  would  be  secure.  Like  the  brutes 
that  are  joint  tenants  with  him  of  this  earth,  he  might 
pass  his  years  in  blind  exemption  from  anxiety,  enclosed 
within  the  moments  as  they  come.  He  would  have 
no  mental,  no  moral,  existence ;  but,  zoologically  con- 
sidered, he  would  be  complete.  Unconsciousness,  then, 
is  the  natural  and  perfect  state  of  these  fundamental 
I  faculties,  and  always  belongs  to  them  in  the  purest 
types  of  their  activity  ;  and  in  so  far  as  they  lose  this 
attribute,  they  are  injured  by  entering  the  presence  of 
other  powers  liable  to  a  different  law.  In  man,  how- 
ever, this  ceases  to  be  possible.  He  is  a  responsible 
being,  entrusted  with  the  power  of  self-direction,  and 
gifted  with  its  pre-requisite,  self-knowledge ;  and  as 
there  is  no  portion  of  his  instinctive  activity  exempted 
from  the  dominion  of  his  Will,  there  is  no  impulse  that 
may  not  be  made  the  object  of  his  reflection,  no  plea- 
sure which  he  may  not  turn  into  a  deliberate  end,  no 
affection  which  he  may  not  criticize.  His  whole  being 
may  become  transparent  to  his  own  eye  ;  and  from  the 
propension  of  the  brute  to  the  aspiration  of  the  saint, 
he  may  lie  analysed  at  his  own  feet.  This  power  of 


Seek  first  the  Kingdom  of  God.          3  7 

introspection  is  the  indispensable  preliminary  to  the 
Conscience ; — which  is  only  the  intuitive  knowledge  ice 
have  with  ourselves  of  the  relative  excellence  of  our 
several  principles  of  action.  Thus,  the  three  endow- 
ments of  Self-Knoidedge,  Self -Estimation,  Self -Direc- 
tion, separate  us  by  a  vast  interval  from  the  creatures 
around  us  that  only  within  the  narrowest  limits  can  be 
regarded  as  reflecting,  or  moral,  or  voluntary. 

Observe  now  the  effect  of  this  self-light  upon  the 
different  forces  of  our  nature  by  which  we  are  impelled. 
To  a  being  thus  let  into  hisown^secrets,  'the  uncon- 
scious, innocent,  life  of  the  mere  creature  becomes 
impossible.  He  was  hungry  before,  he  can  be  dainty 
now ;  and  the  sway  of  the  unknown  stomach  may  be 
succeeded  by  that  of  the  tasty  palate.  The  wild  animals 
can  be  guilty  of  no  excess :  their  instincts  stop  at  their 
proper  boundary,  and  spontaneously  keep  their  propor- 
tioned place.  But  what  natural  law  effects  for  them,  it 
is  left  for  moral  law  to  effect  in  us ;  and  though  pre- 
cisely the  same  limits  which  instinct  would  assign  to 
the  appetites  are  the  true  and  right  ones,  and  the  life 
according  to  nature  coincides  in  its  external  form  with 
the  life  according  to  Conscience,  yet  the  rule  which  is 
involuntary  in  other  beings,  we  have  to  enforce  upon 
ourselves.  We  must  forbid  passion  to  break  its  bounds  : 
we  must  set  a  stern  police  over  desires  to  which  self- 
knowledge  has  whispered  dreams  of  disaffection  and 
taught  a  thousand  rebel  arts.  'We  must  wield  all  the 


38         Seek  first  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

powers  of  the  Will  rcpressitely  against  the  lower 
impulses  that  solicit  us,  and  actively  in  behalf  of  the 
higher.  And  we  must  do  this  till  the  insurgent  pro- 
pensities, made  restless  by  their  first  self-consciousness, 
are  driven  back  within  their  lines,  and  reduced  to 
content  with  their  primitive  domain.  Thus,  the  Moral 
order  of  the  mind  effects  the  restoration  of  these 
inferior  appetites  to  their  instinctive  place;  and  the 
law  of  Duty  in  the  pursuit  of  physical  good  is  but  a 
voluntary  re-adoption  of  the  law  of  nature ;  and  the 
•will  of  God  within  us  is  but  the  image  rendered  back, 
from  the  clear  reflective  soul,  of  the  method  of  God 
without  us.  Here  then  is  one  meaning  of  high  import 
evolved  from  the  rule  of  Christ ; — that  the  pursuit  of 
physical  good  in  a  moral  being  is  to  have  no  larger 
range  than  in  an  instinctive  being ;  that  the  superadded 
power  of  the  Will  is  to  be  engaged  not  in  extending, 
but  in  preserving  the  measures  of  this  range ;  and  so 
leaving  the  higher  affections  an  unobstructed  scope 
through  the  whole  supplemental  range  of  peculiarly 
human  activity.  And  alas !  it  is  needless  to  say,  how 
little  place  the  spirit  of  such  a  rule  has  in  our  actual 
affairs.  Who  can  doubt,  that  the  increase,  not  the 
divinely  regulated  •  pursuit,  of  physical  good,  is  the 
leading  object  with  the  majority  of  men  ?  that  they 
are  not  content  with  the  force  of  desire  that  nature  has 
made  strong  enough  in  all ;  but  throw  into  it  all  the 
higher  faculties  of  the  man,  and  hire  into  its  service 


Seek  first  the  Kingdom  of  God.          39 

reason,  affection,  imagination?  that  the  Will,  instead 
of  watching  and  restraining  the  aim,  goes  wholly  over 
to  it,  works  strenuously  in  its  service,  and  even  stifles 
the  expostulations  that  intrude  from  the  better  mind  ? 
Whoever  lives  under  the  guidance  of  such  a  leading 
aim,  and  is  more  concerned  about  what  he  gets,  than 
what  he  is,  comes  directly  under  the  Christian  con- 
demnation, and  is  a  servant  of  Mammon,  and  an  alien 
from  God. 

But  there  is  another  aspect  of  Christ's  lesson  from 
the  fowls  of  the  air.  The  Moral  law  as  to  physical 
good  is  a  return  to  the  natural  law,  not  only  in  respect 
to  the  extent  of  the  pursuit,  but  even  in  respect  to  its 
unconsciousness.  How,  you  will  say,  can  this  be,  if 
we  are  so  let  behind  the  scenes  of  our  own  nature  ? 
How  can  a  man  daily  determine  his  sleeping  and 
waking,  choose  his  meals,  superintend  his  business, 
and  yet  not  know  what  he  is  about  ?  Assuredly,  he 
cannot ;  and  yet,  throughout  these  processes  there  are 
curious  snatches  of  'unconsciousness,  where  once  there  Q  t , 
was  a  laborious  and  intending  will.  The  punctual 
walk,  distracting  when  it  was  new,  and  wearisome  when 
he  was  ill,  for  the  most  part  leaves  his  attention  free. 
The  manual  skill,  or  even  the  mental  reckoning, 
acquired  by  painful  effort,  he  throws  off  with  the 
facility  of  speech.  The  temperate  or  abstemious  diet, 
adopted  not  without  a  humbling  strife,  he  finds  a  thing 
of  course.  In  a  thousand  ways  mechanical  activity  is 


4O         Seek  first  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

creeping  into  his  being,  and  releasing  the  living  powers 
of  the  Will  for  new  tasks  of  nobler  enterprise.  In 
short,  Habit  in  man  supplies  the  place  of  Instinct  in 
animals,  and  enables  him  to  end  with  the  unconscious- 
ness with  which  they  begin.  It  releases  him  once  more 
from  the  anxieties  of  self-care,  and  leaves  behind  him 
a  protected  realm,  whence  he  may  push  forward  to  new 
conquests.  It  cannot  elevate  him  to  a  state  of  holiness, 
for  that  implies  fresh  affection  and  pure  choice  breath- 
ing in  the  soul  of  action  ;  but  it  can  put  him  back  into 
a  state  of  innocence,  and  shelter  a  portion  of  his  being 
within  the  security  of  nature,  while  he  passes  on  the 
wing  into  the  higher  regions  of  the  spirit.  This 
necessity  for  urging  ever  onward,  and  applying  the 
force  of  resolution  to  points  of  attainment  still  in 
advance,  must  always  prevent  the  course  of  a  respon- 
sible soul  from  being  one  of  ease  and  restfulness  :  in 
a  certain  sense, — a  sense  however  not  depressing  but 
inspiring, — it  must  be  a  strife,  a  glorious  battle,  pro- 
tracted through  eternity.  We  can  never  be  free  to 
stand  still,  and  only  rule,  or  receive  manumission  from 
our  divine  service  •  the  mark  of  heaven  is  upon  us,  and 
we  must  for  ever  work,  though  in  higher  and  higher 
fields.  This  is  the  true  "  bond  of  perfectncss,"  from 
which  it  is  the  sign  of  a  really  servile  and  unloving 
nature  to  desire  escape.  I  do  not  say  then  that  habit 
will  ever  perform  the  task  of  obedience  for  us  ;  but  it 
will  sh  ift  it  to  an  upper  and  nobler  stage ;  it  will  make 


Seek  first  the  Kingdom  of  God.          4 1 

peace  where  there  is  conflict  now ;  and  restore  the 
reign  of  simple  unconsciousness  throughout  the  inferior 
principles  of  our  nature.  He  who  by  strength  of  pur- 
pose has  restrained  his  appetites  and  their  dependent 
pursuits  within  the  range  of  nature,  and  then  by  habit 
compelled  them  to  act  with  mechanical  unreluctance 
within  these  bounds,  is  virtually  reinstated  in  the 
healthiness  of  Instinct.  In  respect  to  the  parts  of 
their  being  which  they  have  in  common  with  him,  the 
fowls  of  the  air  are  not  more  free  than  he.  Only  that 
his  disengagement  from  the  meaner  anxieties  of  the 
Will  is  an  earned  deliverance,  not  a  natural  incapacity  : 
his  content  with  his  allotted  limits  is  a  devout  and 
open-eyed  acquiescence,  not  a  blind  necessity  :  his  self- 
surrender,  for  all  things  physically  needful,  to  the 
guidance  of  God  infused  into  his  involuntary  nature,  is 
not  an  animal  thoughtlessness,  but  a  positive  exercise 
of  affectionate  and  holy  Trust. 

Here  then  is  the  exact  interpretation  of  the  Saviour's 
rule.  Seek  ye  your  physical  good  unconsciously,  by 
strictness  of  habit  restorative  of  the  innocence  of  In- 
stinct. Seek  ye  spiritual  good,  i.e.  a  divine  order  and 
temper  in  all  pursuits, — with  full  consciousness,  and  an 
earnest  tension  of  the  living  Will.  In  this  doctrine 
there  is  no  enthusiasm,  no  extravagance ;  but  a  union 
of  beauty,  truth,  and  goodness,  that  touches  not  our 
conviction  only,  but  our  deepest  love  and  worship. 

How  then  stands  our  practice  by  the  side  of  this 


Lv^U^ 

42         Seek  first  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

divine  rule  ?  Docs  it  reflect  this  estimate  of  the  two 
sorts  of  good  that  solicit  us  ?  In  conducting  the  great 
enterprise  of  life,  have  \ve  established  such  a  true  order 
and  holy,  strictness  in  our  habits  as  to  make  the 
heavenly  Art  and  Skill  of  the  process,  and  not  its 
worldly  stake,  our  grand  concern  ?  Nay ;  do  we  even 
direct  our  amis,  confessedly  perhaps  in  confusion  fcr 
ourselves,  with  a  better  regulation  for  our  children  ?  Do 
we  not  say  to  ourselves,  "  They  must  live,"  and  take 
this  as  the  guiding  motto  of  their  education,  and  plead 
it  as  an  excuse  for  a  thousand  questionable  things,  that 
should  make  a  Christian  blush  ?  Do  we  not  most 
studiously  train,  most  carefully  elaborate  in  them,  those 
desires  which  are  sure  of  being  the  strongest,  and  place 
the  rashest  and  most  negligent  confidence  in  those 
higher  aspirations  which,  if  they  struggle  into  being  at 
all,  are  likely  to  be  all  too  faint  ?  Do  we  not  pamper 
the  fiend  of  ambition  in  their  hearts,  and  insult  and 
starve  the  angel  of  devout  humiliation  ?  What  care  is 
taken  to  clip  betimes  the  high  excursive  wing  of  the 
soul,  beating  already  an  air  that  worldly  parents  cannot 
breathe,  and  tame  it  to  the  miserable  cage  of  wealth 
and  display ;  destined,  poor  prisoner,  to  dash  itself  now 
and  then  against  its  bars,  but  to  gain  no  liberty  save  the 
awful  release  of  death  !  "What  can  be  more  startling  to 
a  true  mind  than  the  crowded  carefulness  of  secular 
instruction,  contrasted  with  the  negligent  emptiness  of 
religious  education  ?  Nay,  is  it  not  a  fact  that,  for  th» 


Seek  first  the  Kingdom  of  God.         43 

sake  of  station  and  fashion,  parents  procure  for  their 
children  a  direct  and  systematic  teaching  in  acknow- 
ledged fiction  on  the  highest  subjects ;  and,  while  they 
would  stand  aghast  at  a  false  quantity  in  Latin  or  a 
mistake  in  geography,  care  nothing  if  the  whole  system 
of  the  moral  universe  be  misconceived;  while  they 
•would  be  ashamed  that  Aristides  should  be  confounded 
with  Aristotle,  or  Marathon  mistaken  for  Mantinea,  are 
indifferent  to  the  most  gigantic  errors  as  to  the  whole 
character  and  government  of  God  ?  And  when  the 
young  depart  from  the  preconceived  model  of  the 
parents'  wish,  what  class  of  aberrations  awaken  the 
most  manifest  disappointment,  and  receive  the  severest 
rebuke  ?  Is  it  the  prudent  profligacy,  the  sharp  cunning, 
the  well-disguised  envy,  the  slippery  yet  presentable 
integrity,  which  imply  the  utter  wreck  of  Consaience, 
and  are  the  fatal  symptoms  of  spiritual  ruin  ?  Or  is  it 
the  conscientious  eccentricity,  the  high  defiance  of  con- 
ventionalism and  convenience  in  the  service  of  some 
generous  heroism, — the  resolve  to  live  a  true  and 
earnest  life, — which,  wherever  they  appear,  rebuke  the 
littleness  of  men,  and  give  a  place  among  the  nobility 
of  God  ?  These  symptoms  tell  too  true  a  tale  of  the 
frequent  inversion  of  the  Christian  aim,  and  betray,  in 
the  sincerest  and  tenderest  relation  of  life,  an  anxiety 
first  for  the  physical  good,  with  only  a  willingness  that 
then  the  Kingdom  of  God,  if  so  it  chance,  should  be 
added  unto  it.  "  They  must  live,"  do  you  say,  in 


44         Seek  first  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

excuse  for  perverting  the  minds  of  your  children  ?  A 
true-souled  parent,  who  knows  the  real  contents  and 
significance  of  life  will  say,  "  Rather  than  sustain 
themselves  here  on  shameful  and  un  worth j  terms, 
Let  them  die  1 " 


IV. 

Wkimss  d  (Soft  foitlj  0ttr  Spirit 


ROMANS  viii.  16. 

"  The  Spirit  itself  beareth  witness  with  our  spirit,  that  we  are  the 
children  of  God." 


IT  was  a  favourite  idea  with  Plato,  that  in  order  to 
discover  the  true  doctrine  of  personal  morality,  we 
should  begin  by  studying  the  Commonwealth  rather 
than  the  Individual.  The  single  soul,  he  thought, 
was  too  small  and  subtle  a  thing  to  reveal  its  nature 
and  the  laws  that  bind  it,  to  a  vision  dull  as  ours ;  but 
in  a  great  community  we  have  a  magnified  image  of 
the  same  human  nature,  with  all  its  relations  made 
colossal  to  the  eye,  and  its  swift  passions  reduced  to  a 
stately  and  measurable  march.  In  this  conception 
there  is  at  least  thus  much  of  truth  involved;  that 
large  social  phenomena  often  show  what,  is  passing 
through  the  private  heart;  that  tendencies  silently 
operating  on  you  and  me,  unmarked  by  others,  tui- 


46  The   Witness  of  God 

suspected  even  by  ourselves,  may  have  conspicuous 
expression  in  the  literature,  the  taste,  the  morals  of 
the  age;  that  lights  of  self-knowledge  may  therefore 
flash  upon  us  from  the  open  spaces  of  the  world,  and 
the  broad  pavement  of  our  time  serve  to  us  as  the 
secret  confessional.  Thus  we  may  find,  I  fear,  a 
magnifying  medium  of  self-inspection  in  a  certain  mode 
of  speech  about  Keligicn  which  is  every  year  becoming 
more  familiar,  and  separating  us  further  from  the  simple 
fervour  of  an  earnest  and  prophetic  age.  I  refer  to  the 
disposition  to  Took  at  faith  instead  of  living  in  it ;  to 
own  it  as  a  noble  fact  in  human  nature,  without  be- 
coming personally  committed  to  it ;  to  feel  interest  in 
its  representations,  but  evade  contact  with  its  realities. 
There  is  no  more  favourite  object  of  criticism  than  its 
different  forms :  tho  origin  of  each  peculiar  worship, 
the  meaning  of  its  symbols,  the  character  of  its  doc- 
trines, are  a  topic  no  longer  special  to  the  divine,  but 
familiar  even  to  the  newspaper.  Yet  the  great  objects 
of  trust  seem  none  the  nearer  for  all  this  :  they  lie  off 
at  second-hand;  and  men  discuss  with  the  lips  each 
other's  creeds,  instead  of  going  into  silence  with  their 
own  God.  The  pure  and  simple  faith  of  the  elder  time 
has  passed  away ;  nor  is  it  any  sufficient  compensation 
for  the  loss,  that  unbelief  has  grown  ccntle  and  respect- 
ful. For,  in  truth,  the  loss  of  enthusiasm  in  the  one 
case  and  the  improvement  of  temper  in  the  other  are 
both  parts  of  the  same  phenomenon :  they  are  the 


With  our  Spirit.  47 

meeting,  or  at  least  the  approximation  of  the  two 
extremes  upon  the  common  ground  of  a  secret  scep- 
ticism, empty  of  all  power,  positive  or  negative. 
Waiving  the  awful  and  fundamental  question, — the 
only  one  that  touches  any  living  soul, — whether  the  voice 
of  prophets  and  of  prayer  be  true,  men  agree  that  at 
any  rate  religion  is  an  indestructible  affection  of  the 
human  mind ;  that  whether  we  Regard  it  as  a  dream,  a 
philosophy,  or  a  revelation,  it  remains  a  fact ;  that  it  is 
an  influence  of  such  transcendent  importance  as  to 
reward  study  and  demand  regulation  and  control.  "We 
find  it  accordingly  not  approached  as  a  divine  verity, 
but  dealt  with  as  a  human  product ;  dressed  up  and 
administered  as  a  medicine  for  the  maladies  of  character 
and  society;  judged  of  by  its  fitness  to  the  wants  of 
a  nation  or  a  class.  The  distastefulness  of  one  ex- 
treme is  studiously  balanced  by  reaction  into  another; 
stagnant  falsehoods  are  permitted  to  remain  from  in- 
dulgence to  the  sickly  minds  long  used  to  breathe  their 
exhalations ;  and  to  purer  streams  of  thought  no  wel- 
come is  given,  lest  fevered  mortals  should  feel  too  great 
a  freshness,  as  of  morning  air.  Churches  are  built,  not 
as  holy  shrines  to  God,  but  as  platforms  of  sectional 
opinion  :  doctrines  and  sentiments  are  estimated,  not 
by  the  sincere  rule  of  our  private  heart, — not  by  their 
intrinsic  worth  and  sanctity — but  by  their  supposed  effect 
on  the  prejudices  of  others  and  the  current  usages  of 
thought.  All  this  betrays  a  disheartening  unreality  of 


48  The   Witness  of  Gcd 

faith.  Such  theological  connoisseurship  would  sink 
abashed  before  the  living  look  of  God ;  plunged  in  the 
pure  and  sanctifying  tides  of  his  infinite  Being,  all  fear 
and  art  would  be  baptized  away.  There  clings  to  us 
some  untrustful  feeling,  something  that  keeps  us  mere 
lookers-on,  and  hinders  the  surrender  of  our  minds  to 
the  divine  captivity  that  makes  their  freedom. 

Were  I  to  try  to  give  expression  to  the  sort  of  doubt 
which  saps  our  moral  strength,  I  should  do  it  in  the 
language  of  a  theory  which  pervades  the  atmosphere 
of  modern  thought,  and  may  well  affect  us,  though  we 
know  it  not.  "  Religion,"  we  perhaps  think,  "  is  a 
beautiful  creation  of  the  human  soul,  the  embodiment 
of  her  highest  aspiration  and  intensest  hope,  her  acknow- 
ledgment of  Law,  her  sigh  of  guilt,  her  gaze  of  love, 
her  solace  for  death,  her  picture  of  eternal  perfectness. 
It  is  at  least  her  sublimest  effort,  and  an  affecting 
testimony  to  the  sweet  and  solemn  depth  of  her  nature. 
But  whether,  as  she  wanders  through  its  scenery,  she 
wakes  and  sees,  or  only  dreams,  is  more  than  we  can 
surely  tell.  Perhaps  she  has  made  her  creed  by  giving 
names  to  the  shapes  of  thought  within  her,  and  then 
turning  them  out  to  dwell  as  visions  in  the  external 
space  and  light.  As  fear  calls  up  the  ghost  it  dreads 
to  see,  and  grief  projects  upon  the  air  an  image  of  the 
dead,  so  perhaps  may  human  faith  only  paint  its  heaven 
and  invent  its  God."  This  is  the  misgiving  which 
weakens  the  present  age  for  great  enterprises,  and  fills 


With  our  Spirit.  49 

it  with  a  certain  tolerant  sadness,  patient  of  human 
trusts,  but  uninspired  by  them.  No  man  of  veracious 
mind  can  be  content  until  it  is  dissipated.  He  cannot 
let  it  remain  doubtful  whether  his  religion  is  a  mere 
phantom-world,  floating  across  the  wall  of  thought ;  or 
accept  compliments  upon  its  majesty  and  grace,  as  if  it 
were  a  free  creation  of  his  soul.  Talk  to  him  as  if  its 
reality  was  only  relative  to  him,  and  was  unknown  to 
the  firm  eternal  universe,  and  your  very  gentleness 
insults  and  hurts  him.  "  I  speak,"  he  will  reply, 
"  that  I  do  know,  and  testify  that  which  I  have  seen  ; 
and  if  you  receive  not  my  witness  as  true,  spare  me 
your  praise  that  it  is  beautiful.  The  divine  objects  I 
announce  are  there ,  and  the  light  by  which  I  see  them 
has  no  glory  but  as  it  flows  from  their  reality ;  were  it 
self-kindled,  it  would  be  but  a  darkness  turned  into 
fire."  If  others  cannot  perceive  the  Holy  Spirit  that 
looks  on  us  through  the  veil  of  life  and  nature, — if  in 
low  moods  of  thought  I  lose  the  blessed  Presence 
myself,  and  begin  to  ask  whether  it  was  a  vision, — why 
should  I  trust  the  blind  heart  instead  of  the  seeing,  and 
believe  the  Night  rather  than  the  Day?  Is  it  more 
likely  that  the  pure  soul,  from  its  own  sunbeams, 
should  weave  imaginary  sanctities,  than  that  the  im- 
pure, by  its  turbid  clouds,  should  hide  the  real  ones  ? 
No ;  it  is  when  inward  confusion  prevails  in  the  con- 
science,— when  care  consumes  the  temper  and  duty  is 
heavy  to  the  will, — when  the  blood  is  hot,  and  the  heart 

E 


50  The  Witness  of  God 

is  cold, — then  it  is  that  doubt  becomes  our  tempter,  and 
says  daily  unto  us,  '  Where  is  your  God  ?  '  When  the 
fogs  of  earth  lie  thick  around  us,  it  puts  the  telescope 
into  our  hands,  and  says,  '  Now  show  us  your  stars ! ' 
We  may  retort  the  charge  of  brilliant  dreaming,  and 
say  that  our  miserable  doubts  are  but  the  black  shadow 
of  our  own  spiritual  disorder  thrown  upon  the  universe 
and  turning  it  into  the  negative  of  God. 

This  controversy  between  faith  and  unbelief,  between 
the  better  inspirations  and  the  meaner  suggestions  of 
our  nature,  is  not  confined  to  the  sphere  of  direct  reli- 
gion. There  is  no  pure  admiration,  no  deep  reverence, 
which  has  not  to  vindicate  itself  against  a  similar  impu- 
tation. What  floods  of  unspeakable  beauty  may  pour 
upon  the  artist's  view  from  a  natural  scene  of  moorland 
or  sea-beach,  in  which  the  literal  observer,  using  his 
best  eyesight,  would  find  nothing  to  reward  a  look ! 
What  hints  of  wondering  thought,  what  prayers  of  ap- 
pealing love,  may  gleam  through  a  clear  eye,  or  quiver 
on  a  living  face,  where  a  common  spectator  sees  nothing 
but  the  colour  and  the  form !  Which  then  has  the 
truer  appreciation  of  what  is  there  ?  He  who  has  only 
the  ocular  perception  prides  himself  on  seeing  the 
plain  reality  .Just  as  it  is  ;  and  smiles  at  his  imaginative 
neighbour  who  flings  upon  it  a  glory  that  dwells  only  in 
his  dreams.  He  to  whom  the  eye  is  but  the  spirit's  in- 
strument feels  sure  there  is  no  falsehood  in  his  vision, 
and  sharply  answers,  '  Thou  dull  mortal,  thy  lens  and 


With  our  Spirit.  51 

retina  are  good ;  but  there  is  something  opaque  which 
the  optician  cannot  reach  ;  may  God  give  thee  light ! ' 
So  is  it  with  every  element  and  influence  of  life.  There 
are  some  men  before  whom  if  you  place  some  strain  of 
deepest  poetry,  they  will  discern  in  it  only  the  shape  of 
the  thought,  the  flow  of  the  verse,  and  the  fall  of  the 
rhyme  ;  while  to  others  it  will  bring  tones  of  unearthly 
music  for  the  hymns  of  their  secret  heart,  and  the  very 
page,  as  it  lies  spread  upon  the  knee,  will  meet  them 
with  a  holy  look.  Nay,  even  in  the  scientific  study  of 
the  outward  creation,  there  is  room  for  the  same  differ- 
ence between  man  and  man.  One,  with  the  penetra- 
tion of  a  vigilant  intellect,  will  watch  nature  sharply, 
as  if  it  were  an  enemy,  or  coldly,  as  if  it  were  a  dead 
mechanism,  and  note  its  movements  and  methodise  its 
facts :  another,  with  a  certain  pressure  of  love  and 
reverence,  will  not  sit  outside,  but  enter  with  a  secret 
sympathy  into  the  interior,  and  so  catch  the  style  of 
the  creative  hand  as  to  surmise  its  laws  ere  yet  he  proves 
them.  There  is  nothing  which  you  may  not  try  to  un- 
derstand in  these  two  ways, — by  observation  from  with- 
out, and  by  affection  taking  its  abode  within  :  by  the 
first  you  learn  only  what  it  is  not  ,•  by  the  second  you 
appreciate  what  it  is.  How  rarely  do  you  meet  any 
particular  man,  among  all  who  fill  the  streets,  to  whom 
you  find  it  a  congenial  thing  to  apply  the  Christian 
doctrine  of  immortality!  The  name  on  the  shop  or 
office-door  seems  not  to  stand  on  your  register  of 

E  2 


52  The  Witness  of  God 

heavenly  things  :  the .  common  features,  the  retail  talk, 
the  trivial  cares,  the  mind  filled  up  with  the  town  news, 
appear  so  foreign  to  the  atmosphere  of  God  as  to  dash 
the  glory  of  your  religion;  and  when  you  go  to  his 
funeral,  you  think  of  the  worthy  tradesman  who  has  lost 
his  home,  not  of  the  saintly  spirit  that  has  attained  it. 
But  with  his  wife  and  his  children  it  is  otherwise.  To 
them  he  is  a  light  in  the  very  heaven  which  he  obscures 
to  you,  and  mingles  a  dear  and  venerable  reality  with  a 
scene  that  was  but  shadowy  before ;  he  is  the  nearest 
object  to  their  thought  of  God ;  his  image  mingles  with 
their  prayers;  and  in  the  picture  of  diviner  worlds, 
nothing  seems  more  clear  and  natural  than  he.  Yet 
they  have  chafed  against  his  faults  more  painfully  than 
you ;  and  have  had  that  near  familiarity  which,  except 
to  the  deepest  hearts,  is  rarely  free  from  its  moments  of 
dispute  and  discontent.  But  you  have  looked  at  him 
with  the  scanning  eye  of  criticism ;  they,  with  the  pene- 
tration of  affection  :  you  have  noticed  his  manifestations ; 
they  have  had  insight  into  himself;  have  known  his 
temptations;  witnessed  his  faithfulness;  felt  his  ten- 
derness ;  overheard  his  sighs  for  a  nobler  life.  And  it 
is  wonderful  how  often,  when  the  artificial  glass  of 
judgment  is  thrown  aside,  and  you  trust  to  the  trans- 
parent air  of  a  natural  love,  the  vulgarities  of  a  soul 
appear  to  melt  away,  and  you  are  disenchanted  of  your 
fastidious  scorn. 

Which  then,  in  all  these  cases,  is  the  true  view, — the 


With  our  Spirit.  53 

literal,  or  the  devout?  The  depth  and  beauty  which 
enthusiasm  everywhere  beholds, — are  they  really  there, 
that  we  should  try  to  rise  into  the  vision  ?  or  are  they  a 
romance,  that  we  should  seek  to  wipe  them  off?  Does 
the  mind  put  them  into  nature,  or  take  them  out  ?  Are 
we  to  honour  their  revealer  as  a  prophet  of  divine 
endowment  ? — or  their  disenchanter,  as  the  model  of 
human  wisdom  ?  For  my  own  part,  without  in  the  least 
denying  that  it  is  possible  for  an  idealising  fervour  to 
see  too  much,  I  believe  we  are  in  more  danger  from 
the  dulness  which  sees  too  little.  In  relation  to  the 
highest  truth,  mere  sense  and  intellect,  looking  through 
the  frosty  air  of  a  wintry  heart,  may  be  but  instruments 
of  delusion.  If  indeed  we  stood  before  the  face  of  a 
dead  universe ;  if  nature  were  but  an  organization  of 
atoms,  pregnant  with  blind  forces  and  teeming  with  un- 
intended births ;  if  the  planets  as  they  move  did  but 
dance  the  minuet  of  Fate ;  if  the  morning  light  were 
but  a  chemical  glare,  quite  empty  of  the  play  of  thought, 
and  the  waters  and  the  winds  had  no  meaning  in  their 
song ;  if  duty,  hope,  and  sorrow  were  the  paroxysms  of 
a  puppet,  a  mere  thrill  upon  the  nerves ;  then,  with  our 
living  mind  to  present  before  the  scene,  we  should  be 
above  its  meaningless  materialism ;  there  would  be 
nothing  to  understand,  nothing  to  reach,  that  is  beyond 
the  perceptions  of  the  eye  and  the  register  of  the  cold 
intelligence.  But  if,  while  we  are  on  one  side  of  nature, 
the  Infinite  God  is  on  the  other ;  if,  interposed  between 


54  The   Witness  of  God 

the  divine  Spirit  and  the  human,  it  may  become  the 
veil  to  separate  them,  or  the  communion  to  unite ;  if 
the  plain  of  the  restless  sea  and  the  curves  of  the  quiet 
stars  are  the  tracings  of  his  living  thought ;  if  the 
scenery  before  us  and  the  experience  within  us  are  the 
symbols  of  his  speaking  Mind;  if  conscience  be  his 
voice,  and  trial  his  appeal  for  deeper  trust,  and  every 
gleam  of  aspiration  the  kindling  of  his  touch : — 0, 
then,  how  can  we  expect  to  know  either  nature  or  life 
but  by  the  hermeneutics  of  a  godlike  spirit, — the  con- 
verse of  sympathy  between  his  will  and  ours  ?  It  is  a 
work  of  interpretation,  in  which  success  will  be  chiefly 
won,  not  by  the  eye  quick  to  apprehend  the  external 
characters  of  things,  but  by  souls  familiar  with  what 
holiest  purpose  and  sublimest  thought  are  likely  to 
mean.  A  pure,  faithful,  devout  and  tender  mind,  borne 
down  by  no  weight  of  stifled  nobleness,  and  lifted  above 
selfish  fear  and  care,  has  the  best  key  to  the  mysteries 
of  humanity,  and  an  insight  into  the  counsels  of  the 
Infinite,  clearer  than  acuteness  and  philosophy  can 
give. 

The  scepticism  which  men  affect  towards  their  higher 
inspirations  is  often  not  an  honest  doubt,  but  a  guilty 
negligence ;  and  is  always  a  sign  of  narrow  mind  and 
defective  wisdom.  Who  ever  found  that  the  heavy 
mood  in  which  he  could  admire  nothing,  be  touched  by 
nothing,  sanctify  nothing,  permanently  proved  the  true 
one  ?  Who,  when  once  he  has  escaped  it,  does  not 


With  our  Spirit.  55 

know  this  leaden  look  and  solid  air  upon  the  surface  of 
life  to  be  the  brooding  cloud  of  his  own  heart  ?  and  how 
often  do  the  more  luminous  perceptions  of  other  souls 
reveal  to  us,  in  nature,  in  art,  in  character,  a  beauty  we 
had  not  discerned  before,  but  which  is  no  sooner  shown 
than  it  startles  us  by  its  reality  out  of  all  denial !  Left 
to  ourselves  to  peer  about  from  the  dull  prison  of  our 
grosser  mind, — unaided  by  the  mighty  spirits  of  our 
race,  wlio  emancipate  us  by  their  greatness  and  snatch 
us  by  their  genius  into  the  free  light, — how  little  should 
we  see  of  the  sanctity  and  glory  of  this  world  !  What 
a  dim  and  subterranean  life  we  should  live  !  Yet  the 
instant  we  are  taken  aloft  we  find  that  the  darkness  was 
the  dream  and  the  splendour  is  come  true  !  If  you  will 
believe  only  in  the  perceptions  of  sense  and  distrust  the 
intimations  of  the  spirit,  it  is  a  question  how  low  you 
will  descend  for  your  test  of  certainty.  Will  you  depend 
upon  your  own  faculties  in  proportion  as  they  are  simply 
animal,  and  deny  them  in  proportion  as  they  are  divine  ? 
— confide  in  your  eyesight  and  give  the  lie  to  the  con- 
science and  affections  ?  The  herds  that  low  amid  the 
Alpine  echoes  have,  no  less  than  you,  the  outline  of  the 
everlasting  hills,  and  the  verdure  of  the  pine -cleared 
slope,  painted  on  their  vision,  and  the  chant  of  the 
distant  torrent  swelling  and  fainting  on  their  ear:  is 
their  perception  truer, — are  they  nearer  to  reality, 
because  they  cannot,  with  you,  meet  the  sublime  gaze 
of  nature  and  see  through  to  the  eternity  of  God? 


56  The  Witness  of  God 

The  grandeur  and  the  glory  that  you  behold,  are  they 
not  there  ?  the  divine  expressiveness,  the  speaking 
appeal  to  your  silent  worship,  the  mingling  of  some- 
thing secret  "with  your  spirit,  as  if  unseen  thought  were 
flowing  from  the  mountains  and  the  sky,  to  meet  the 
answering  radiation  of  your  soul, — are  these,  which  are 
the  human  privilege,  a  phantom  of  unreality, — a  delu- 
sion which  the  fortunate  hrutes  escape  ?  It  is  impos- 
sible !  Call  it  imagination,  call  it  wonder,  call  it  love, 
whatever  it  be  that  shows  us  the  deeper  significance 
of  the  world  and  humanity  and  makes  the  difference 
between  the  surface-light  of  sagacity,  and  the  interpene- 
trating glow  of  worship,  we  owe  to  it  whatever  highest 
truth,  whatever  trustiest  guidance  we  have.  Wherever 
there  is  anything  beautiful  to  read,  anything  holy,  any- 
thing tender  and  profound,  this  alone  avails  and  com- 
mands the  key  of  true  interpretation.  The  hard  and 
literal  mind  mistakes  everything  in  proportion  as  its 
import  is  of  priceless  worth ;  misses,  beyond  all  others, 
the  drift  of  human  language,  still  more  the  silent  ex- 
pression of  look  and  action,  and  gropes  without  appre- 
hension through  the  blessed  hieroglyphics  of  life  and 
nature.  Does  not  the  poet,  does  not  the  prophet,  ask 
for  a  reader  with  enthusiasm  enough  to  appreciate  him, 
and  complain  that  by  others  ho  is  not  understood  ?  If 
the  greatest  human  works  and  utterances  demand  for 
their  apprehension  a  soul  kindled  with  intense  affections, 
con  we  doubt  what  is  the  qualification,  and  what  the 


With  our  Spirit.  57 

disqualification,  for  reading  the  Divine  ?  May  not  their 
Author, — Soul  of  our  souls,  who  breathes  the  eternal 
poem  of  the  universe,  and  attunes  our  minds  to  hear  it, 
who  provides  at  once  the  hymn  of  the  morning  stars 
that  sing  together  and  the  chords  of  the  spirit  that 
tremble  to  their  strain,  ask  as  clear  a  response  from  us 
as  we  demand  from  one  another  ? 

When,  therefore,  in  higher  moments  brought  by  the 
sorrows  of  life,  the  tension  of  duty,  or  the  silence  of 
thought,  you  catch  some  faint  tones  of  a  voice  diviner 
than  your  own,  know  that  you  are  not  alone,  and  who  it 
is  that  is  with  you.  Stay  not  in  the  cold  monologue  of 
solitary  meditation,  but  fling  yourself  into  the  com- 
munion of  prayer.  Fold  not  the  personal  shadows 
.  round  you ;  lie  open  to  the  gleam  that  pierces  them ; 
confide  in  it  as  the  brightest  of  realities, — a  path  of 
heavenly  light  streaking  the  troubled  waters  of  your 
being,  and  leading  your  eye  to  the  orb  that  sends  it. 
Learn  to  distrust  the  suggestions  of  lower  and  more 
earthly. hours,  and  scatter  the  fears  of  the  slothful,  un- 
awakened  heart.  If  we  treat  the  very  "  light  that  is  in 
us  as  darkness,  how  great  is  that  darkness  ! "  Be  it 
ours  to  doubt  the  glooms,  and  not  the  glory  of  our 
souls ;  to  lie  low  beneath  the  blinding  cloud,  and  simply 
cry,  "  Lord,  that  I  may  receive  my  sight ! "  and  rise  up 
to  prophesy,  only  when  the  heavens  are  opened,  and  the 
divinest  scope  of  things  is  clear ;  to  court,  and  not  to 
shun,  the  bursts  of  holy  suspicion  that  break  through 


58    The  Witness  of  God  with  our  Spirit. 

the  crust  of  habit  and  the  films  of  care,  and  accept 
them  as  a  glance  from  the  eye  of  the  Infinite, — the 
"  witness  of  his  spirit  with  our  spirit,  that  we  are  the 
children  of  God." 


V. 

art. 


x.  41. 

'•Martha,  Martha!  thou  art  careful  and  troubled  about  many  things: 
but  one  thing  is  needful ;  and  Mary  hath  chosen  that  good  part,  which 
shall  not  be  taken  away  from  her. " 

THE  sketch  of  the  sisters  of  Bethany  presented  in  the 
Gospel,  possesses  more  than  a  biographical  interest. 
Discriminated  as  they  are  from  each  other  with  the 
utmost  clearness,  and  representing,  not  simply  indi- 
vidual peculiarities,  but  two  natural  orders  of  human 
character,  they  acquire  all  the  force  and  significance  of 
allegory.  The  figures  would  be  striking  and  graceful, 
as  mere  domestic  pictures,  giving  us  insight  into  a 
family  interior  touched  with  colours  ancient  but  un- 
faded,  and  filling  us  with  melancholy  to  think  of  how 
old  a  pedigree  are  the  cares  and  aspirations  of  the 
present  hour.  But  the  great  household  of  the  world 
has  ever  been  divided  very  much  as  the  cottage  of 
Lazarus;  occupied  and  directed  by  sister  spirits, 


60  The  Better  Part. 

whereof  Martha  and  Mary  are  the  genuine  types; 
deriving  thence  both  its  rivalries  and  its  harmonies; 
and  seeking  in  different  but  balanced  ways  to  fulfil  the 
mission  of  eternal  Providence.  And  there  too,  Christ 
has  sat  divinely  in  the  midst,  watching  the  toil, 
teaching  the  wisdom,  quieting  the  strife ;  appealed 
to  by  the  competing  spirits,  and  giving  many  an 
unexpected  adjudication.  The  agency  and  affinities 
of  his  religion,  in  the  private  mind  and  on  the 
theatre  of  the  world,  are  not  obscurely  seen  in  the 
incidents  of  that  village  home;  and  the  personal 
features,  so  small  and  distinct  in  themselves,  expand, 
under  the  glass  of  a  true  interpretation,  into  lineaments 
of  universal  history. 

What  observer  of  human  affairs  can  fail  to  recognise 
everywhere  the  class  represented  by  the  bustling, 
officious,  indefatigable  Martha,  worn  with  her  toil,  yet 
ever  making  more,  greedy  of  all  the  work,  yet  com- 
plaining of  others'  rest  ?  There  are  men  and  there  are 
nations  that  seem  ordained  to  be  the  fags  of  the  world ; 
whose  honest  pride  is  to  keep  its  larder  stored  and  its 
wardrobe  full;  who  exist  only  to  sweep  its  passages 
and  clean  its  windows  ;  and  find  their  most  complacent 
dignity  in  spreading  its  table  with  the  whitest  cloth, 
and  preserving  its  accounts  in  the  safest  order.  They 
do  not  deliberately  think  these  administrative  cares  to 
be  the  great  objects  for  which  man  is  set  upon  the  stage 
of  being :  they  are  always  on  the  way  to  some  higher 


The  Better  Part.  61 

end :  only  they  never  reach  it ;  for  when  they  are  just 
within  a  step  of  it,  and  the  neatest  preparation  has 
been  made  for  beginning  to  live,  some  new  dust  is 
discovered  that  must  first  be  cleared  away,  and  some 
finish,  positively  the  last,  constantly  remains  to  be 
interposed.  Fuming  under  self-imposed  tasks,  they 
think  themselves  the  hardly  entreated  servants  of  all : 
deploring  the  slavery  of  life,  they  would  be  at  a  loss  to 
use  its  freedom.  Does  any  one  suppose  that  if  Martha 
had  been  more  than  taken  at  her  word,  she  would 
really  have  sat  at  Jesus'  feet,  with  surrendered  and 
kindling  mind?  and  that  she  would  not  rather  have 
started  up  on  the  remembrance  of  some  loose  screw  in 
the  economical  machine,  which  must  be  set  fast  ere 
her  attention  could  be  at  liberty  ?  And  is  it  not  plain 
that  the  half  of  mankind  whom  she  represents,  while 
lamenting  that  their  years  are  spent  in  drudgery,  and 
leave  them  no  time  for  wonder,  thought,  and  love,  are 
at  home  only  among  the  means  of  life,  and,  these  once 
ready,  would  be  perplexed  to  live.  And  so  it  is,  that 
they  are  always  preparing  for  a  time  that  never  comes  : 
one  trifle  more  of  management,  and  then  they  will  sit 
down  to  wisdom;  and  as  they  run  out  on  this  final 
errand  without  their  hat,  death  overtakes  them  like  a 
thunder-shower,  and  drives  them  to  the  shelter  that 
forbids  return. 

Barer  and  more  scattered  is  the  class  formed  in  the 
likeness  of  the  quiet,  thoughtful  Mary,  less  anxious  to 


62  The  Better  Part 

be  the  entertainers,  than  the  disciples,  of  heavenly 
wisdom.  Still  such  a  class,  being  ordained  of  Provi- 
dence for  the  harmony  of  the  world,  exists ;  and  even 
in  this  busy,  trading,  struggling,  England,  the  least 
genial  to  it,  perhaps,  of  any  climate  in  history,  is  by  no 
means  extinct.  Here  and  there  you  may  meet  with 
those,  who  recall  you  at  once  from  the  accessories  to 
the  essence  of  our  existence ;  who,  instead  of  spelling 
its  little  syllables,  interpret  for  you  its  great  meaning  ; 
who  do  its  work,  not  from  a  menial  point  within  it, 
but  from  a  lordly  position  beyond  it,  and  rather  pass 
through  the  present  than  are  imprisoned  in  it.  Other 
men  appear  to  constitute  life  by  small  and  gradual 
additions ;  jotting  down  act  after  act,  as  their  will  may 
happen  to  expend  it ;  and  only  gaining  a  glimpse  of 
the  sum  total,  as  the  vast  account  is  swelling  towards 
its  completion :  and  so  they  gather  but  an  empiric 
wisdom  that  looks  back  on  the  beginning  from  the  end, 
and  miss  the  reflective  insight  that  discerns  "the  end 
from  the  beginning.  But  these,  on  the  contrary,  seem 
to  comprehend  the  whole  of  life  before  experiencing  its 
parts  ;  to  descend  from  its  vast  scope  into  its  separate 
details  ;  and  to  diffuse  one  indivisible  character  through 
the  successive  acts  which  measure,  but  do  not  make  it. 
No  doubt  there  is  a  good  in  that  "  knowledge  how  to 
live,"  which  sagacity  derives  from  mere  length  of  days, 
and  which  gives  a  wholesome  ripeness  to  the  counsels 
of  age.  Such  gathered  experience  is  an  indispensable 


The  Better  Part.  63 

antidote  to  the  impulses  of  inexperienced  self-will :  it 
adds  a  fresh  witness  to  truth  and  goodness,  and 
strengthens  the  collective  conscience  of  humanity. 
But,  for  personal  guidance,  it  comes  too  late  :  the  voyage 
is  over,  ere  the  chart  is  drawn ;  and  after  a  thousand 
dangers  of  the  deep,  the  skill  to  steer  is  won,  at  the 
moment  when  the  anchor  is  about  to  drop  in  the  still 
waters.  Inductive  knowledge  is  the  glory  of  a  pro- 
gressive race,  that  can  spare  centuries  without  stint, 
provided  science  does  but  organize  itself  at  last ;  but 
it  is  a  poor  reliance  for  the  transient  individual  who 
cannot  afford  to  wait  for  his  moral  wisdom  till  he  dies. 
And  so,  to  save  our  time  and  shorten  the'  excuses  of 
folly,  God  gives  us,  in  the  highest  things,  an  intuitive 
knowledge  and  prophetic  light :  we  are  not  left  to  the 
thread  of  memory  ever  in  our  hand,  whereby  to  measure 
our  past  courses  ;  but  from  the  earnest  eye,  looking  for 
the  path  before  it,  a  radiance  shines  that  shows  the 
true  way  by  night  or  noon.  To  clear  and  brighten  this- 
native  light  of  conscience, — or  rather  to  preserve  its 
original  purity, — is  for  every  man  the  good  part  which 
shall  not  be  taken  from  him. 

The  preference  which  Jesus  manifested  for  the  cha- 
racter of  Mary,  has,  I  believe,  been  often  esteemed 
more  poetical  than  just.  It  has  been  accused  as  a 
romantic  judgment,  giving  countenance  to  the  mis- 
chievous belief  that  the  qualities  best  adapted  for  this 
world  are  uncongenial  with  the  spirit  of  the  other. 


64  The  Better  Part. 

The  passage  has  been  read,  not  without  a  secret  pity 
for  the  good  Martha ;  and  many  a  worthy  housewife 
has  thought  within  herself,  "  It  seems  rather  hard  that 
this  is  what  we  get  for  all  our  pains."  From  the  out- 
side it  looks  so  easy  to  sit  still  and  gaze  up  on  the  face 
of  heavenly  goodness, — so  pleasant  to  take  in  the  lessons 
of  holy  truth,  that  those  who  see  the  attitude  from 
amid  the  toil  and  heat  of  the  common  day,  regard  it 
only  as  a  mental  luxury,  a  coolness  from  the  tree  of 
life  upon  the  grass  of  thought ;  more  fit  to  be  envied 
of  men,  than  applauded  by  the  Son  of  God.  And  yet 
there  is  the  deepest  truth  discoverable  in  this  verdict  of  - 
Christ ;  and  the  whole  history  of  individual  character, 
and  Of  collective  society,  leads  us  to  the  same  result. 
Those  to  whom  life  is  a  succession  of  particular  busi- 
nesses,  however  intelligent,  energetic,  and  conscientious, 
must  rank  in  the  scale  of  human  excellence  below 
those  to  whom  life  is  rather  the  flow  of  one  spirit. 

In  the  former  there  is  always  to  be  noticed  a  certain 
want  of  proportion  in  the  parts  and  methods  of  their 
career.  It  has  not  the  unity  of  a  pervading  aim,  the 
ground-colouring  of  a  latent  affection.  It  is  not  the 
spontaneous  expression  of  a  given  mind,  but  the 
activity  provoked  by  a  given  lot ;  so  that  its  highest 
energy  is  that  of  adaptation  rather  than  creation.  Every 
one  understands,  or  at  least  feels,  the  difference  there 
is,  in  matters  of  Art,  between  a  work  of  ingenuity  and 
a  work  of  genius.  It  is  a  characteristic  of  all  the 


The  Better  Part.  65 

"  useful  arts,"  those  to  which  we  dedicate  the  chisel, 
the  furnace,  and  the  mill,  that  they  direct  themselves 
to  the  formation  of  some  definite  mechanical  product. 
The  distinct  preconception  of  an  outward  object  which 
he  is  to  complete,  guides  the  processes  of  the  artisan ; 
and  all  his  skill  consists  in  the  intentional  application 
of  means  to  his  proposed  end,  and  the  gradual  appear- 
ance of  the  result  by  due  accretion  of  materials.  He 
can  tell  you  how  he  did  it  all ;  can  enumerate  the  in- 
gredients in  a  receipt ;  lay  down  the  methods  by  scale 
and  compass ;  and  enable  you  to  do  the  same  thing 
again.  It  is  the  characteristic  of  "  the  fine  arts," 
those  which  avail  themselves  of  language,  form,  and 
colour,  that  they  do  not  see  at  the  beginning  the  outward 
result  in  which  they  end  ;  that  it  comes  out  from  their 
feeling,  instead  of  standing  before  them  as  their  guide ; 
that  it  is  reached, — as  men  say,  blindly, — not  i.e.  by 
the  artificial  lamp  of  the  understanding,  carried  in  the 
hand  and  consciously  turned  this  way  and  that  to  show 
the  way,  but  by  self-light  from  the  sense  of  beauty 
hidden  in  the  heart.  The  symmetrical  unity  of  the 
work  arises,  not  from  contrivance,  but  from  harmony  in 
the  mind  which  it  expresses.  Hence  the  incommu- 
nicable and  purely  subjective  character  of  all  high  art. 
Its  great  masters  can  give  you  no  list  of  its  materials, 
no  account  of  its  procedure :  they  cannot  teach  you  to 
do  the  same  ;  and  if  you  will  serve  an  apprenticeship 
to  them,  it  must  be  by  Veneration  for  their  works,  not 

F 


66  The  Better  Part. 

by  imitation  of  their  ways.  Rules  may  help  you  to 
manufacture,  but  cannot  inspire  you  to  create.  Now 
there  is  a  difference  analogous  to  this  in  the  moral 
administration  of  human  life.  Duty  has  its  artisan, 
who  labours  by  prescription  to  the  will ;  and  its  artist, 
who  shapes  forth  the  love  within  his  heart.  The  one 
lives  after  the  manner  of  the  journeyman,  executing 
each  separate  order  as  it  may  happen  to  come  in ;  the 
other,  in  the  spirit  of  the  poet,  fashioning  his  own 
designs,  and  expressing  through  them  all,  one  truth, 
one  prayer,  one  hope.  In  the  former  case,  everything 
is  contemplated  in  detail :  every  paiticular  task  is  an 
independent  care  and  end,  seen  apart  from  the  relations 
on  which  its  worth  depends,  and  for  a  time,  remaining 
all  in  all..  Hence  arises  a  slavery  of  the  mind  to  means 
and  conventions ;  a  worship  of  proprieties  instead  of 
obligations ;  an  inability  to  follow  the  shifting  bound- 
aries of  rule  and  habit,  and  an  adherence  to  custom 
dry  and  dead.  A  conscientious  will,  without  the  light 
and  glow  of  high  affections,  is  almost  inevitably  the 
prey  of  superstition,  and  lies  under  the  nightmare  of 
fear.  With  what  childish  care  may  you  often  observe 
it  tending  and  watering  the  artificial  flowers  of  rootless 
usage,  unconscious  that  they  hold  no  seed  and  can  ripen 
no  fruit ;  while  the  true  eye  for  nature  can  tell  at  any 
distance  the  blossoms  of  the  meadow  and  the  wood, 
from  those  of  the  ball-room  and  the  stage.  No  degree 
of  sagacity  can  protect  the  cfrafing  will  from  false  and 


The  Better  Part.  67 

disproportioned  estimates.  Its  possessor  carries  with 
him  a  constant  magnifying  glass,  which  by  exaggerating 
all  trivial  things,  and  leaving  the  grandest  to  spread  far 
beyond  his  field  of  vision,  equalises  the  little  and  the 
great.  He  sees  no  relation  of  parts.  Each  task  in 
turn  takes  up  the  whole  of  him  at  once,  and  causes  a 
wearing  expenditure  of  effort  on  every  successive  point, 
without  bringing  the  fruits  of  power  in  the  end.  A 
perpetual  exaggeration  of  small  things  will  never  make 
a  great  one ;  and  those  who  take  a  series  of  limited 
views,  for  want  of  the  ascendant  faith  and  love  which 
blend  them  into  one  vast  prospect,  leave  on  you,  after 
all,  the  impression  that  our  existence  is  made  up  of 
petty  matters, — that  our  world  is  a  colony  of  busy 
insects  making  a  mighty  buzz  about  a  very  little  being. 
They  show  the_earnestness  of  ajl_the.part&-of  life  ;  but 
not  of  the  whole  ;  and  by  their  failure  to  present  it  in 
any  noble  aspect,  or  shed  on  it  any  tint  that  is  divine, 
are  apt  to  provoke  others  into  cynicism  and  frivolity, 
rather  than  awe  them  with  the  sense  of  obligation. 
But  a  soul  kindling  with  devout  aspiration  cannot 
mistake  instrumental  details  for  ultimate  ends.  The 
act  of  the  hour  belongs  to  the  business  of  the  day; 
the  business  of  the  day  has  its  place  in  the  scheme  of 
years ;  the  scheme  of  years  is  but  the  element  of  an 
eternal  work ;  and  all  is  the  expression  of  a  constant 
spirit,  conversing  with  God  in  the  present,  and  in  quest 
of  his  higher  mind  in  the  future.  To  such  a  one,  life 

F  2 


68  The  Better  Part. 

is  not  a  mere  voyage  by  the  log  and  line, — an  experi- 
mental cruise  over  waters  unexplored ;  but  a  course 
computed  by  the  everlasting  stars  over  an  ocean  un- 
visited  indeed,  but  not  unknown  ;  with  its  relation  to 
the  heavens  discerned,  and  sunny  inlets  and  blessed 
islands  ever  in  the  thoughts. 

The  difference  between  a  life  pieced  together  from 
even  the  stoutest  remnants,  and  a  life  woven,  though 
with  fragile  woof  and  fading  colours,  from  the  con- 
tinuous warp  of  a  pure  heart,  is  conspicuous  especially 
in  the  temper  with  which  the  ills  and  wrongs  of  the 
human  lot  are  borne.  The  mind  intent  on  outward 
tasks  and  dedicated  to  mere  day-labour  cannot  endure 
thwarting :  its  work  failing  or  destroyed,  it  is  left 
without  resource  ;  its  only  end  is  gone ;  the  very  world 
it  had  chosen  for  its  abode  has  burst  as  a  bubble  ;  and 
it  is  precipitated  into  empty  space,  as  a  disconsolate 
ghost.  If  the  disappointment  is  caused  by  the  mis- 
conduct of  others,  the  indignation  of  such  a  one  has 
no  natural  check ;  sits  amid  the  ruin  in  despair ;  bursts 
the  bounds  of  reason ;  and  recovers  only  with  reflective 
shame.  Shut  up  as  he  is  in  object  after  object  as  if 
there  were  nothing  else,  the  habitual  vehemence  of  his 
nature  is  easily  explained.  He  lives  a  thousand  lives 
instead  of  one.  He  is  always  gaining  or  losing  his  all :. 
playing  for  the  earthly  stake  and  not  for  the  heavenly 
skill,  he  looks  with  eager  gaze  at  the  slightest  stroke, 
and  is  all  eye  for  every  move.  He  feels  with  respect  to 


The  Better  Part.  69 

every  untoward  event  as  if  it  were  an  injury ;  and  can 
scarcely  refrain  from  being  angry  with  his  afflictions. 
From  this  unhappy  thraldom,  whoever  "  has  chosen  the 
better  part  "  is  delivered  without  effort.  Regarding  his 
whole  life  as  the  instrument  of  higher  ends,  he  can  lose 
this  or  that  of  its  contents  without  its  function  being 
gone.  Engaged  not  on  what  it  has,  but  on  what  it  is, 
he  keeps  the  great  object  of  his  earnest  spirit  under 
every  change.  While  it  remains  to  be  lived,  its  essence 
and  its  worth  abide,  and  decay  and  disappointment 
touch  its  accidents  alone.  And  so  the  vicissitudes  which 
irritate  and  confuse  inferior  minds,  leave  him,  though 
in  sorrow,  yet  with  undisturbed  stability;  and  while 
others  allow  themselves  to  be  provoked  by  afflictions  as 
if  they  were  injuries,  he  can  receive  injuries  almost  as 
if  they  were  but  afflictions  ;  having  ever  in  reserve  the 
sense  of  a  Divine  Will,  that  limits  the  conditions  of 
wrong,  and  checks  it  far  short  of  hopeless  ruin.  This 
tranquillity  of  view  imparts  also  a  loftiness  to  life,  which 
redeems  even  its  poorest  passages  from  the  appearance 
of  anything  mean.  Nothing  menial,  nothing  contemp- 
tible remains  in  the  inevitable  relations  of  men,  when 
once  regarded  as  constituents  of  a  Divine  order.  The 
lot  which  God  provides,  the  trouble  which  he  pities,  the 
soul  that  he  loves  and  visits  cannot  be  beneath  our 
patience  and  reverence  :  the  scale  of  life  within  which 
he  can  hide  his  light,  is  no  object  of  our  anger  or  our 
scorn.  Where  self  is  dissolved  in  the  all- sanctifying 


7o  The  Better  Part. 

Presence,  no  guiltless  experience  can  bring  humiliation. 
The  emancipated  nature  rises  in.to  repose ;  and  attains 
the  sweet  and  quiet  mind  which  never  sways  from  its 
own  centre ;  whose  openness  to  love  does  not  disturb  its 
fidelity  to  duty ;  which  passes  through  extremes  of  cir- 
cumstance with  a  serene  and  touching  constancy ;  and 
is  so  attuned  that,  whether  caressed  by  summer  winds, 
or  quivering  before  rending  storms,  it  can  give  forth  only 
harmony.  To  such  a  one,  the  littleness  of  the  parts  of 
life  loses  power  to  deprive  the  whole  of  greatness ;  in- 
versely, the  greatness  of  the  whole  gives  every  part  a 
large  significance,  and  secures  even  the  least  from  dis- 
regard as  not  worth  the  carefulness  of  a  devout  aspiring 
conscience.  The  gentle "  spirit  of  piety  holds  in  it  no 
contempt ;  cannot  feel  itself  above  anything  that  bears 
the  sacred  name  of  duty ;  is  thankful  enough  if  it  be  only 
equal  to  it.  No  !  it  is  quite  another  temper, — the  false 
imagination  of  romance,  not  the  true  heart  of  religion, — 
that  despises  the  small  component  elements  of  life,  and 
fancies  that  in  such  foolish  scorn  there  is  some  wise 
liberty..  A  certain  freedom,  no  doubt,  the  two  may  be 
said  to  have  in  common.  They  can  both  fling  them- 
selves loose  from  usage,  and  strike  into  paths  eccentric 
with  the  movements  of  the  world.  But  when  romance 
dashes  out  of  the  established  ways,  it  is  to  please 
itself;  when  religion,  it  is  to  serve  others:  the  one  in 
self-display,  the  other  in  self-forgetfulness  :  the  one  in 
defiant  joy,  the  other  in  modest  reluctance  :  the  one  in 


The  Better  Part.  71 

triumph  over  inferior  men,  the  other  in  surrender  to  the 
higher  will  of  God.  And  here  we  touch  the  inmost 
difference  between  them ;  that  with  the  one,  it  is  the 
claim  of  liberty  from  what  is  below ;  with  the  other,  the 
need  of  submission  to  what  is  above.  And  so,  while 
the  face  of  the  one  looks  superciliously  down,  that  of 
the  other  turns  reverently  up,  and  lets  the  feet  be 
directed,  not  by  eager  and  foreseeing  choice,  but  by  the 
felt  hand  of  an  Unseen  Guide,  whose  counsels  are  known 
only  moment  by  moment.  And  thus  a  sacred  calm 
falls  upon  the  soul,  forever  hearing  the  whispered 
words,  "  Fear  not,  for  I  am  with  thee." 


VI. 

lerMum  £)thi:itt  anb  Iwrnmt, 


MATT.  v.  48. 

"Be  ye  therefore  perfect,  even  as  your  Father  which  is  in  heaven  is 
perfect." 

FKOM  no  lips  but  those  of  the  great  Mediator  between 
the  divine  and  the  human  in  our  world  could  this  precept 
fall  without  failing  of  its  beauty  and  suffering  reproach 
for  its  extravagance.  Had  any  teacher  less  near  to  God, 
less  dear  to  man,  given  utterance  to  it,  it  would  have 
been  taken  to  imply  either  a  presumptuous  estimate  of 
earthly  possibilities,  or  a  low  conception  of  heavenly 
sanctity.  How  often  is  the  Christian  preacher, — nay, 
even  the  Stoic  moralist, — accused  of  demanding  too  much 
from  human  nature,  of  urging  the  wing  of  aspiration 
beyond  its  appointed  height,  when  he  merely  asks  for 
some  faint  lineaments  of  the  Divine  image  on  the  soul, 
and  rebukes  the  petty  thoughts  and  low  ambitions  which 
completely  shut  it  out !  When  he  looks  among  them 
for  only  some  reflected  trace  of  the  infinite  purity,  some 


Perfection  Divine  and  H^^man.         73 

pious  nobleness  to  mark  them  as  the  Children  of  the 
Highest,  how  readily  is  he  charged  with  losing  himself 
in  the  regions  of  romance !  Yet  here  the  Teacher  of 
teachers,  the  great  interpreter  of  Conscience,  tranquilly 
demands,  not  merely  the  consciousness  of  God,  hut 
the  living  likeness  of  him ;  not  only  the  resemblance 
of  an  involuntary  feature  and  a  transient  hour,  but  a 
similitude  intentional,  constant  and  complete:  "Be  ye 
perfect,  as  your  Father  in  Heaven  is  perfect."  And 
from  him  we  accept  the  injunction,  as  giving  not  only 
the  ideal  of  our  life,  but  the  actual  of  his.  Himself 
the  middle  point  of  reconciling  harmony,  where  the 
attributes  of  humanity  are  touched  with  the  glory  of  a 
divine  perfection,  he  renders  it  credible  to  us  that,  all 
minds  being  of  one  race,  the  Supreme  Holiness  may 
repeat  itself  in  all :  he  destroys  the  hopeless  distance 
at  which  an  unapproaching  worship  stands ;  and  brings 
into  conscious  sympathy  and  resemblance  the  goodness 
of  the  finite  and  the  infinite. 

Self-evidently,  it  is  not  in  the  scale,  but  only  in  the 
kind,  of  character,  that  our  nature  can  be  brought  to 
the  similitude  of  God's.  Cut  off,  as  we  are,  from  all 
sensible  approach  to  him  in  dimension,  we  can  bear  his 
image  only  in  the  spirit  of  our  souls.  It  is  just  in  this, 
however,  that  the  perfection  of  a  moral  agent  must 
consist.  He  might  have  great  magnitude  and  long 
duration  and  intense  force,  yet  be  no  more  than  a 
monster  and  an  anti-god,  a  gigantic  depositary  of 


74          Perfection  Divine  and  Human. 

passion  and  disorder.  Space  and  Time  and  Power  are 
mere  physical  elements,  quite  neutral  in  the  estimate  of 
character,  and  conceivable  alike  of  Devil  and  of  Deity. 
It  is  in  the  kind  of  sentiment  ruling  within  the  mind, 
the  balance  of  its  graces  and  the  proportion  of  its  love, 
that  all  its  perfectness  consists :  and  these  are  colours 
that  may  be  no  less  faultlessly  blended  within  the 
miniature  frame  of  a  mortal  nature  than  on  an  ampli- 
tude boundless  as  the  sky.  To  change  our  physical  rela- 
tion to  God,  of  absolute  dependence  and  incommensur- 
able littleness,  is  no  more  possible  than  for  the  wave  to 
become  the  ocean :  but  just  as  the  same  laws  that  sway 
the  masses  of  the  sea  also  trace  the  ripple  and  shape 
the  spray,  so  may  the  very  same  divine  principles,  the 
same  preferences,  the  same  constancy  which  belong  to 
the  spiritual  life  of  God,  reappear  in  the  tiny  currents 
of  our  will  and  even  the  -very  play  and  sparkle  of  our 
affections.  It  is  but  the  affectation  of  humility,  or  the 
dislike  of  noble  claims,  that  can  make  us  shrink  from 
our  affinity  with  the  Father  and  Inspirer  of  all  souls. 

There  is  a  special  feature  in  the  Divine  perfection  on 
which  Christ  in  his  exhortation  emphatically  dwells. 
God  warms  with  his  sunshine  the  evil  and  the  good, 
and  refreshes  with  his  rain  the  just  and  the  unjust.  No 
impulse  of  anger,  no  persuasion  of  complacency,  diverts 
him  from  his  steady  ways,  or  alters  the  fundamental 
ground-work  of  beneficence,  on  which  all  his  adminis- 
tration rests.  There  is  a  common  mercy,  an  inalienable 


Perfection  Divine  and  Human.         75 

love,  which  he  never  permits  to  become  contingent, 
and  from  which  nothing  ever  falls  away.  It  abides  with 
the  sinful  as  with  the  saintly,  and  returns  the  same 
mild  look  to  guilty  defiance  as  to  trustful  prayer. 
Looking  on  Nature  as  the  theatre  and  on  her  methods 
as  the  activity  of  God,  we  cannot  fail  to  be  struck  with 
his  serene  perseverance  through  the  storms  of  human 
affairs,  and  the  heavings  of  human  passion.  Once 
having  established  a  physical  law,  he  persists  in  doing 
thus  and  no  otherwise  without  weariness  from  lapse  of 
time  or  deviation  from  change  of  place.  Go  where  you 
will,  live  where  you  may,  you  are  in  the  presence  of  his 
silent  veracity,  his  unswerving  consistency.  The  rules 
which  he  has  laid  down  for  this  terrestrial  sphere, 
which  dispose  of  its  matter,  distribute  its  growths,  and 
determine  its  movements, — which  we  read  off  from  the 
ocean,  and  the  mountains  and  the  ah*, — are  followed 
no  less  in  the  furthest  fields  of  telescopic  vision ;  and 
processes  observed  in  the  newest  continents  and  never 
traced  till  yesterday  explain  the  geologic  vestiges  of 
incalculable  time.  Science  cannot  find  a  Law,  pro- 
vincial or  provisional :  intending  to  interpret  one  spot, 
she  alights  upon  a  truth  for  all :  struck  with  a  momen- 
tary phenomenon,  she  seizes  the  key  of  a  periodic 
combination.  She  cannot  detect  the  orbit  of  the  moon, 
without  discovering  the  plan  of  all  the  solar  worlds ; 
or  catch  and  expound  the  sunbeam  in  a  crystal  without 
telling  a  truth  of  Orion  and  Pleiades.  Ere  yet  there 


76          Perfection  Divine  and  Human. 

was  any  moral  life  upon  this  world,  a  material  order 
had  heen  established,  and  was  slowly  building  up  and 
garnishing  the  future  dwelling-place  of  man :  the 
rippled  sand,  the  gravelled  beach,  the  sedgy  marsh,  the 
treasured  and  the  melting  snow,  have  left  their  record 
of  seasons  and  successions  like  our  own.  And  through 
all  the  subsequent  moral  vicissitudes  of  human  history, 
this  steady  order  has  continued,  as  if  those  vicissitudes 
had  not  entered  on  the  scene.  There  are  indeed 
legends  which  tell  of  a  visible  sympathy  of  the 
elements  with  the  affairs  of  man, — of  Nature  angry 
with  his.  crimes :  but  no  such  convulsion  at  her  heart 
has  left  a  trace  upon  her  punctual  record  and  her  calm 
face.  Over  Arctic  wastes  or  teeming  cities  the  Sun  is 
equally  lavish  of  his  flood,  and  glances  alike  from  the 
sword  of  an  Attila  and  the  crucifix  of  a  Xavier :  the 
full  moon  indifferently  flings  her  purity  into  the 
windows  of  revelry  and  guilt,  and  paints  the  Saviour's 
image  on  the  chancel-floor  where  lonely  sorrow  and 
devotion  kneels. 

"What  Science  calls  the  uniformity  of  nature,  Faith 
accepts  as  the  fidelity  of  God.  They  are  but  the 
settled  ways  of  his  sole  causation,  the  program  of  his 
everlasting  work,  the  dial-plate  which  the  index  of 
human  expectation  is  to  traverse  age  by  age.  When 
we  speak  of  their  unerring  regularity,  we  do  but  attest 
his  truth,  which  keeps  the  time-piece  steady  for  us,  and 
warns  us  how  the  shadows  lie.  He  that  framed  these 


Perfection  Divine  and  ffiiman.         77 

rules  might  have  made  others  in  their  stead,  and  at  any 
moment  change  them  by  a  thought.  But  once  he  has 
announced  them,  an  eternal  Word  has  gone  forth,  and 
shall  not  be  made  void.  It  is  a  promise  made  alike  to 
just  and  unjust,  and  must  be  punctually  kept  with 
both.  "Without  a  reliable  Universe  and  a  trust-worthy 
God,  no  moral  character  could  grow.  A  fickle  world 
admits  only  of  a  lawless  race :  no  obedience  could  be 
required  from  those  who  are  planted  among  shifting 
conditions,  to  whom  foresight  is  denied,  and  whose 
wisdom  is  as  likely  to  go  astray  as  their  folly.  As  well 
might  you  attempt  to  build  upon  the  restless  sea,  or  to 
steer  by  shooting  stars,  or  keep  time  by  the  leaves 
dancing  in  the  wind,  as  shape  a  mind  or  train  a 
character  amid  a  scene  whose  courses  were  unsteady 
and  where  action  was  a  lottery.  All  human  habits  are 
formed  by  a  mutual  understanding  between  man  and 
nature.  Who  could  be  temperate,  if  the  food  that 
simply  nourishes  today  were  to  intoxicate  to-morrow  ? 
Who  would  put  away  sloth  to  be  in  his  fields  betimes, 
but  in  faith  that  the  sun  would  not  forget  to  rise? 
Who  build  his  observatory,  were  not  the  heavens  still 
the  same  that  Kepler  and  Galileo  scanned  ?  Thus  the 
constancy  of  creation  is  the  direct  expression  of  the 
good  faith  of  God ;  of  his  regard  not  only  for  our 
security,  but  for  the  culture  of  •  our  reason  and  the 
insight  of  our  conscience.  He  disciplines  us  thus  to 
his  own  love  of  beauty  and  order.  His  eternal  patience 


78          Perfection  Divine  and  Human. 

takes  away  our  excuses  of  surprise,  and  rebukes  our 
pleas  of  disobedience.  The  wild  sophistry  of  tempta- 
tion is  put  to  shame  by  the  serene  light  of  his  natural 
countenance  and  the  steady  swing  of  the  pendulum 
that  counts  his  ways.  He  secures  us  against  all 
passionate  sway :  no  impulse  rushes  into  space  with 
irruption  of  blessing  or  of  curse  :  no  devilish  element 
bursts  the  bars  of  his  prohibition,  and  maddens  us  by 
dashing  with  discords  the  music  of  the  spheres.  He 
keeps  the  everlasting  watch  himself  and,  if  there  be 
chaos  any  where,  takes  care  it  shall  not  be  here.  That 
he  may  be  true  to  us,  he  foregoes  a  portion  of  his 
infinite  freedom,  and  binds  himself  to  methods  whose 
cycle  we  can  measure  and  whose  exactitude  we  may 
trust.  The  natural  Universe  is  God's  eternal  act  of 
Self-restraint :  and  if  he  is  willing  to  descend  into  finite 
system  and  trace  the  fields  of  his  presence  with  the 
orbits  of  accurate  custom,  is  it  too  much  for  us  to 
answer  him  with  a  life  -of  faithful  regulation ;  to  repress 
within  us  the  sources  of  confusion ;  to  mark  the  flow 
of  time  with  intersections  of  punctual  duty;  and  so 
pursue  our  way  that  neither  the  just  nor  the  unjust 
may  be  able  to  distrust  us  ?  To  enter  spontaneously 
into  the  bonds  of  inflexible  veracity,  and  habits  of  holy 
order,  is  the  first  element  in  that  perfection  which 
brings  us  into  the  similitude  of  God. 

If  however  there  were  nothing  diviner  than  the  punc- 
tuality of  Nature,  God  after  all  would  not  be  perfect. 


. 

v" 

Perfection  Divine  and  Human.         79 

Precisely  because  his  sun  shines  and  his  rain  descends, 
alike  on  the  evil  and  the  good,  do  we  feel  that,  if  this 
were  all  and  represented  his  whole  thought,  his  forbear- 
ance would  be  a  cold  indifference,  and  his  mercy  more 
terrible^  than  vengeance.  He  would  be  indeed  above 
the  realm  of  passion,  but  still  below  the  heights  of  pure 
affection ;  and  while  we  should  be  safe  from  the  flash 
of  impulse,  we  should  have  the  promise  of  no  dear 
love.  We  can  revere  and  worship  the  universal  good- 
ness which  spreads  a  common  ground  for  the  thankful 
and  the  thankless ;  but  only  if  it  be  a  real  long- 
suffering, — a  self-repression  put  upon  a  higher  sen- 
timent,— the  temporary  silence  of  a  holy  Mind,  that 
for  truth's  and  pity's  sake  treats  for  awhile  as  the  same 
those  that  are  felt  to  be  infinitely  different.  Could  we 
think  that  the  just  and  unjust  in  being  dealt  with  alike 
by  the  courses  of  the  universe,  were  not  discriminated 
in  the  deep  reality  of  God,  there  would  be  no  beauty, 
no  tenderness  in  the  comprehensive  sky  and  the  im- 
partial showers  :  the  restrained  flashes  of  retribution 
would  touch  us  no  more  than  the  stony  lightnings 
hanging  from  the  fist  of  some  sculptured  Jove;  and 
the  neutral  smile  upon  the  face  of  narture  would  be 
ghastly  as  the  mildness  on  the  features  of  the  dead. 
We  admire  the  evolutions  of  a  tranquil  and  persistent 
order,  the  precision,  the  symmetry,  the  smooth  chro- 
nometry  of  unwearied  Law  ;  but  only  as  the  expression 
of  what  is  higher  behind;  only  if  the  mechanism  is 


8o          Perfection  Divine  and  Human. 

put  forth  by  what  is  not  mechanical ;  only  if  its 
inexorable  necessity  be  the  product  and  determinate  act 
of  an  Infinite  Will.  As  the  usage  of  a  Mind  whose 
activity  is  free,  the  accuracy  of  the  heaven  and  the 
earth  is  marvellous ;  as  the  -balance  of  forces  with  which 
matter  is  bound,  it  is  not  marvellous  at  all.  As  a 
voluntary  sameness  amid  the  profusion  of  possibilities, 
as  the  calm  look  of  living  Holiness  on  a  drama  so  often 
passionate  with  guilt  and  sorrow,  it  subdues  us  with 
adoration  and  consoles  us  with  the  deepest  trust ;  but 
as  the  involuntary  dynamics  of  a  rotatory  necessity,  it 
would  grind  us  to  despair.  Often  indeed,  with  our 
best  faith,  there  is  something  hard  to  bear  in  the  fixity 
of  nature  around  the  dangers  and  the  agonies  of  men. 
Over  the  village  stricken  with  the  plague,  why  does  the 
sun  rise  with  such  a  dreadful  glory,  and  the  morning 
breeze  sweep  with  so  mocking  a  freshness  in  its  breath  ? 
When  the  ship  strikes  and  rends  asunder  with  a  shriek, 
why  does  the  water  swing  about  as  if  it  held  nothing 
better  than  itself,  and  the  surge  fling  and  beat  the 
mother  and  her  child,  as  if  they  were  a  senseless  log  ? 
When  a  tyrant's  army  sleeps  encamped  upon  the  field, 
ready  in  the  morning  to  crush  a  nation's  life,  why  do 
the  patient  stars  look  so  divinely  down,  and  glide  over 
the  wicked  watch-fires  as  if  they  were  a  lamp  of 
sacrifice  ?  Were  this  unconcerned  steadfastness  all  that 
our  faith  presented  to  us,  there  would  be  no  perfectness 
in  God :  Providence  would  be  no  more  than  Fate ; 


Perfection  Divine  and  Human.         81 

Duty,  an  accommodation  to  necessity :  Science,  the 
negation  of  worship.  Were  this  all,  then  would  man, 
in  imitating  God,  lose  the  highest  attributes  of  his 
soul ;  would  dry  up  into  a  mere  unbending  organism 
of  habit, — a  machine  punctual,  precise,  and  polished  ; 
never  slackening  to  think,  never  pausing  to  weep,  never 
quickened  with  joy;  beating  off  his  steady  stroke  of 
work  and  disappointing  no  one's  computation,  till  death 
cuts  off  the  steam.  A  faithful  and  reliable  man  is  a 
priceless  and  wholesome  blessing  in  this  world :  but 
this  cold  exactitude  is  not  faithfulness.  Springing 
from  no  life  of  conscience,  and  graced  by  no  varieties 
of  love,  it  is  neither  a  sacrifice  to  God,  nor  a  heart- 
offering  to  man,  but  only  that  absence  of  disturbance 
which  arises  from  an  unimpassioned  and  plodding 
nature.  The  human  piecework  that  is  got  through  by 
those  who  are  content  to  do  much  and  be  nothing  is 
doubtless  great.  But  its  good  is  only  negative  :  the 
moment  it  ceases  to  be  the  expression  and  outcoming 
of  a  living  soul,  its  very  copiousness  is  dearth  and  its 
success  is  failure.  When  the  regularities  of  habit  and 
the  perseverance  of  will  become  simply  automatic,  they 
lose  their  claim  to  moral  admiration  :  however  they 
may  pace  with  heavier  .grist  the  mill  of  wealtji,  they 
have  ever  less  to  offer  at  the  shrine  of  worship  :  the 
windows  are  darkened  through  which  gleams  of  divine 
and  solemn  light  once  entered  and  enriched  the  soul : 
the  voice  loses  its  mellow  tones,  and  is  no  longer 

G 


82  Perfection  Divine  and  Human.  • 

flexible  enough  to  sing  a  song  of  hope  to  the  heavy 
hearts  of  sorrowing  men.  No  withered  unconcern,  no 
dead  exactitude,  is  fitted  for  a  life  like  ours, — a  life  full 
of  free  elements,  related  not  merely  to  the  punctualities 
of  material  nature,  but  to  the  heaving  passions  of 
living  men ; — a  life  strewed  with  various  sorrows  and 
full  of  struggling  nobleness,  where  no  open  ear  is  ever 
far  from  the  curse,  the  sigh,  the  prayer ; — a  life  of 
outward  heats  and  inward  thirst,  that  no  sleeping  mill- 
pond  can  keep  clear  and  fresh,  but  only  the  running 
waters  of  the  pure  soul  descending  from  the  upland 
wilds.  Neither  in  the  human  nor  in  the  Divine 
existence  does  the  most  faultless  uniformity  in  itself 
constitute  perfection. 

But  there  is  something  far  other  than  this  in  God. 
He  is  not  only  the  Author  of  Nature ;  he  is  also  our 
"  Father  in  Heaven"  Above  and  around  all  his  action 
in  the  physical  creation  there  lies  a  diviner  and  a 
tenderer  realm,  an  infinite  circumambient  space  of  his 
mind,  that  does  not  act  on  matter  but  is  only  present 
with  spirits,  and  whose  transcendent  nature  we  can 
only., express  by  saying  that  here  he  is  "in  Heaven" ; 
— not  on  the  earth,  not  in  the  planets,  not  with  the 
sun,  though  the  place  and  orbits  of  them  all  are  in  the 
natural  sky ;  but  out  of  the  whole  astronomic  realm,  in 
a  preternatural  sphere,  more  beautiful  and  glorious 
than  any  where  bounden  law  and  rigorous  necessity 
prevail.  However  vast  and  majestic  the  uniformities 


Perfection  Divine  and  Human.         83 

of  nature,  they  are  nevertheless  finite :  science  counts 
them,  one  by  one ;  and  completed  science  would  count 
them  all.  God  however  is  not  finite :  he  lives  out 
beyond  the  legislation  he  has  made ;  and  his  thought, 
which  defines  the  rules  of  matter  does  not  trans-migrate 
into  them  and  cease  else-how  to  be ;  but  merely  flings 
out  the  law  as  an  emanating  act,  and  himself  abides 
behind  as  thinking  power, — an  eternal  Spirit  with  a 
boundless  inner  life  still  unexpressed.  In  this  silent 
ocean  of  his  being, — this  transcending  spiritual  sphere  of 
his  life,  dwells  the  remaining  element  of  the  perfection 
which  we  seek.  It  is  an  all-embracing  Love,  an  in- 
exhaustible holiness,  an  eternal  pity,  an  immeasurable 
freedom  of  affection,  whence  all  the  regularities  of  his 
will  spring  forth,  and  which  leaves  enough  behind  to 
visit  the  private  wants  of  every  soul,  to  linger  with 
tenderness  near  every  sorrow,  to  be  present  with  rescue 
in  every  temptation.  This  it  is  that  is  the  real  ground 
of  our  trust  and  love :  God  is  not  merely  the  power  of 
nature,  but  the  Father  of  spirits :  his  resources  are 
not  spent  and  used  up  in  the  legislation  of  the  physical 
universe,  but  are  large  enough  to  overflow  freely  and 
copiously  into  the  spirits  that  are  in  the  likeness  of  him- 
self. Hence,  without  violated  rule,  without  breach  of 
pledge,  he  can  individualize  his  regards,  enter  with  his 
gentle  help  into  every  mind,  and  while  keeping  faith  with 
the  universe,  knock  at  the  gate  of  every  lonely  heart. 
Stupendous  as  may  be  the  network  of  determinate 

G  2 


84          Perfection  Divine  and  Human. 

law,  with  threads  fastened  on  every  world  and  con- 
tinuous through  all  kosmic  ages,  there  is  room  enough 
in  the  interstices  for  the  free  play  of  the  Spirit  that 
passeth  where  it  listeth, — for  the  movements  of  an 
everlasting  moral  life  amid  the  natural, — and  all  the 
swift  pulses  of  Divine  affection.  It  is  precisely  in  the 
union  of  these  two, — a  customary  order  he  will  not 
loose, — a  free  Spirit  he  will  not  bind, — that  he  is 
perfect  in  himself  and  open  to  near  communion  as  well 
as  distant  trust. 

And  if  it  is  with  this  perfection  that  we  are  to  be 
perfect,  how  clear  becomes  the  type  of  our  highest 
good  !  and  how  truly  it  speaks  to  our  purest  aspirations  ! 
An  imperturbable  Order  penetrated  with  an  ever-fresh 
and  pliant  Love, — is  not  that  the  very  balance  we  need, 
to  bring  the  conscience  to  repose  ?  First,  like  God,  to 
reclaim  the  wild  spaces  of  our  life,  to  reduce  its  chaos 
of  possibilities,  to  divide  it  into  times  and  seasons,  and 
tell  each  punctual  duty  when  to  rise  ;  to  organise  a 
scheme  of  faithful  habits,  against  which  impulse  shall 
dash  in  vain,  and  within  whose  barriers  the  waters  shall 
lie  safe  and  still ;  to  be  accurately  reliable  and  true,  to 
begin  no  cycle  we  do  not  maintain,  and  of  aJl  the  lights 
we  hang  aloft  to  see  that  "not  one  faileth  " ; — is  to 
vindicate  our  affinity  with  the  creative  method  of  his 
mind.  But  then  there  is  a  higher  'kindred  with  him, 
the  kindred  of  the  spirit,  yet  to  claim.  Through  all 
the  inexorabilities  of  habit  the  living  breath  of  every 


Perfection  Divine  and  Human.         85 

gracious  affection  must  flow  at  its  own  sweet  will  : 
around  the  rocky  fixtures  of  resolve,  the  tides  of  a 
great  heart  must  freely  dash  and  sweep.  If  once  we 
allow  the  method  and  mechanism  of  our  being  to 
stiffen  on  us  and  shut  us  in  ;  if  in  the  rigour  of  our 
duty  we  have  no  love  to  spare ;  if,  within  our  rules  of 
justice,  pity  cannot  stir ;  if  toiling  day  by  day  in  our 
field  of  patient  work,  we  forget  what  it  is  to  mingle 
with  the  beauty  of  the  world,  to  wonder  at  the  mystery 
of  life,  or  sink  into  the  meaning  of  death  and  sorrow ; — 
we  become  what  the  universe  would  be  without  a  God, 
a  fatalised  organism,  in  servile  bondage  to  its  own 
lowest  forces,  transcended  and  wielded  by  no  Diviner 
Soul.  From  this  uttermost  blight  no  trustful  disciple 
shall  seek  deliverance  in  vain.  Let  him  but  keep  close 
to  the  fountains  of  living  inspiration,  and  the  spring 
will  not  run  dry.  Let  him  go  even  to  the  task-work  of 
action  in  the  spirit,  not  of  egotistic  mastery,  but  of 
reverent  obedience,  and  it  will  bring  no  withering  to 
his  heart.  Let  him  keep  his  thought  and  faith  in 
sympathy  with  both  sides  of  this  great  world,  which 
manifests  the  life  of  God, — its  everlasting  ways, — its 
ever  living  spirit ;  and  he  shall  renew  his  strength  like 
the  eagle's  ;  he  shall  blend  the  ground-note  of  constant 
duty  with  the  sweet  and  running  melody  of  an  ever- 
varying  love ;  and  by  the  harmony  of  opposites,  become 
at  length  "perfect  as  the  Father  in  Heaven  is  perfect." 


VII. 

[col  (Qualilw  of  Jfaitjj, 


2  TIMOTHY  i.  5. 

"  (When)  I  call  to  remembrance  tlie  unfeigned  faith  that  is  in  thee; 
•which  dwelt  first  in  thy  grandmother  Lois,  and  thy  mother  Eunice;  and 
I  am  persuaded  iu  thee  also." 

IT  is  not  often  that*  the  old  Reformer,  preparing 
to  quit  the  scene  of  his  labours,  bequeaths  to  his 
young  successor  such  parting  counsels  as  those  of 
Paul  to  Timothy.  The  usual  product  of  experience, 
especially  of  an  experience  gained  in  attempting 
a  great  moral  revolution,  is  a  certain  caution  and 
lowering  of  hope :  and  when,  looking  back  upon 
the  past,  the  spent  enthusiast  measures  the  small- 
ness  of  his  achievements  by  the  splendour  of  his  early 
projects,  he  is  tempted  to  regret  the  magnitude 
of  his  aims,  and  to  advise  for  the  future  a  zeal 
too  temperate  to  live  through  the  frosts  of  circum- 
stance. Towards  the  end  of  life,  the  precepts  \\hich 
most  naturally  flow  from  our  lips  express  themselves 
in  negatives :  we  warn  the  fresh  aspirant  not  to 


The  Moral  Quality  of  Faith.  87 

expect  too  much  ;  not  to  confide  too  implicitly  in  men ; 
not  to  be  too  certain  of  the  truths  he  loves ;  not  to 
wage  a  fruitless  battle  with  the  obstinacy  of  human 
affairs,  or  waste  his  strength  in  seeking  to  force  the 
bounds  of  possibility.  The  disposition  to  judge  every 
enterprise  by  its  event,  and  believe  in  no  wisdom  that  is 
not  endorsed  by  success,  is  apt  to  grow  upon  us  with 
years,  till  we  sympathise  with  nothing  for  which  we 
cannot  take  out  a  policy  of  assurance.  It  was  other- 
wise with  Paul.  He  had  many  friends  of  his  own 
standing,  connected  with  precious  memories  of  the 
past:  at  Antioch,  his  earliest  patron  Barnabas,  his 
partner  in  many  a  trust;  at  Corinth,  his  associates 
Aquila  and  Priscilla,  with  whom  he  had  so  long  lived 
and  worked  ;  at  Ephesus,  the  faithful  Onesiphorus  who, 
wealthy  merchant  as  he  was,  was  not  ashamed  of  the 
apostle's  chain,  but  when  at  Rome  visited  and  refreshed 
his  captivity.  But  none  was  so  dear  to  him  as  Timothy, 
the  youngest  of  them  all :  not  one,  he  says,  did  he  find 
likeminded  with  him.*  In  him  there  was  nothing  to 
check  and  chill  the  great  apostle's  unexhausted  heart ; 
whose  rich  tones  found  full  response  in  the  young  man's 
fervour  and  disinterestedness,  and  whose  yet  elastic 
hopes  gained  a  new  spring  in  the  presence  of  a  kindred 
enthusiasm.  The  friendship  between  these  two  men, 
so  unequal  in  years  and  so  different  in  powers,  is  one 
of  the  most  suggestive  episodes  in  the  early  history  of 

*  Philipp.  ii.  20. 


88  The  Moral  Quality  of  Faith. 

the  gospel.  It  was  apparently  the  one  mellowing 
affection  that  toned  down  the  impassioned  vigour  of 
Paul ;  that  bound  him  tenderly  to  life,  and,  when  he 
would  spring  to  grasp  the  heavenly  crown,  recalled  him 
with  a  sigh ;  that  mingled  a  constant  human  image 
with  his  prayers  and  brought  them  trembling  on  his 
voice ;  that,  homeless  as  he  was,  made  him  feel  amid 
his  wanderings  the  sadness  of  absence  and  of  loneli- 
ness. The  travelled  ambassador  of  Christ,  who  snatched 
Christianity  from  the  hands  of  a  local  faction  and 
turned  it  to  a  universal  faith, — whose  powerful  word 
shook  all  the  gods  from  Cyprus  to  Gibraltar, — who 
turned  the  tide  of  history  and  thought,  giving  us  the 
organization  of  Christendom  for  the  legions  of  Rome, 
and  for  Zeno  and  Epicurus,  Augustine,  Eckhart  and 
Luther,  he,  with  his  indomitable  soul,  was  conquered 
by  a  Lycaonian  youth,  and  now  in  Rome  sat,  with  his 
chained  hands  upon  his  knee,  musing,  as  he  says,  with 
joy,  on  the  tears  and  embrace  of  their  last  parting. 
And  then  he  writes  to  say  he  cannot  do  without  him. 
All  have  deserted  him  but  one  ;  at  his  hearing  in  the 
palace  he  had  to  meet  his  accusers  almost  alone  ;  and 
now  he  waits  his  sentence,  and  ere  the  imperial  sword 
can  fall  upon  his  neck,  he  must  see  Timothy  again. 
What  is  the  tone  of  the  letter,  written  at  a  crisis  like 
that, — the  letter  which  resigns  the  expectation  so  long 
cherished,  of  living  till  Messiah  conies?  Does  he 
indite  a  threnody  of  disappointment  ?  Does  he  caution 


The  Moral  Quality  of  Faith.  89 

Timothy  against  sacrificing  himself  to  impetuous  hopes, 
and  tell  him  that  zeal  is  well  enough,  but  that  after  all 
we  must  take  men  as  we  find  them  ?  On  the  contrary, 
his  words  fan  every  noble  fire  in  the  young  man's  heart : 
like  the  voice  of  the  retired  victor,  looking  on  and 
feeling  the  blood  glow  at  sight  of  the  race  again,  they 
spur  the  dear  Athlete  to  fresher  effort,  and  bid  him 
mark  the  goal.  The  spirit  of  fear ' — 'tis  no  gift  of 
God's ; — only  the  spirit  of  love  and  power  !  let  the  good 
soldier  of  Jesus  press  on  in  hope,  heedless  of  any 
shame  and  hardship  that  may  befall  a  faithful  man  ; 
stir  up  the  gift  that  is  in  him ;  be  instant  in  season  and 
out  of  season ;  keep  a  patience  never  spent  by  failure  ; 
and  in  the  last  extremity  remember  in  whom  he  has 
believed.  Glorious  Apostle  !  Would  that  every  leader's 
voice  could  burst,  as  he  falls,  into  such  a  trumpet- 
sound,  thrilling  the  young  hearts  that  pant  in  the  good 
fight,  and  must  never  despair  of  victory  ! 

The  secret  of  this  deep  affection  between  the  aged 
apostle  and  the  young  disciple  is  to  be  found  in  a 
quality  common  to  them  both, — which  made  Timothy 
wise  beyond  the  measure  of  his  youth  and  Paul  fresh 
against  the  tendencies  of  age ; — that  energy  of  faith 
which,  from  its  wondrous  conquests  over  our  lower 
nature,  is  by  many  regarded  as  supernatural.  By 
faith  I  do  not  mean  their  common  belief  in  Christ  and 
devotion  to  his  cause  :  I  do  not  refer  to  any  agreement 
of  their  intellect  in  relation  to  the  propositions  of  a 


9O  The  Moral  Quality  of  Faith. 

creed  ;  but  to  a  certain  quality  of  heart  and  character 
so  rare  to  find  in  these  days,  that  it  is  scarce  possible 
to  explain.  He  calls  it  an  "  unfeigned "  faith,  and 
takes  it  as  the  mark  of  transparency  and  simplicity  of 
soul.  He  treats  it,  not  as  an  apostolic  gift,  but  as 
flowing  down  in  the  maternal  succession,  from  the 
gracious  heart  of  Eunice  and  the  blessing  of  the  good 
grandmother  Lois,  ere  yet  there  was  any  Christ  to 
believe  in.  It  was  therefore  an  attribute  that  might 
pass  across  the  line  from  nature  into  grace ;  that  could 
descend  in  the  track  of  hereditary  religion,  and  link  a 
faithful  family  to  heaven.  Nothing  so  marks  the 
,  degradation  of  our  modern  Christianity  as  the  notion 
that/aif/t  is  only  opinion, — that  a  man  may  have  it  or 
not  without  aifecting  his  moral  worth, — that  it  is  the 
result  of  intellectual  accident  or  opportunity,  for  which 
God  will  never  call  him  to  account.  It  is,  on  the 
contrary,  beyond  all  comparison,  the  most  complete 
and  distinct  exponent  of  a  man's  character ;  and  if 
only  we  can  get  to  know  it,  he  is  revealed  to  us  more 
clearly,  than  if  Che  whole  catalogue  of  his  actions  were 
given  us  to  read.  Matters  of  historical  theology,  no 
doubt, — critical  questions  about  the  authorship  of  books 
and  the  authority  of  councils, — may  be  differently 
judged  by  inquirers  of  the  same  spiritual  grade.  But 
it  is  not  so  with  the  deep  essence  of  religion ;  and  the 
view  which  we  may  take  of  our  moral  relations,  of  the 
life  here  and  hereafter,  of  the  ruling  laws  of  this 


^  OriMJUUrt?**'    »»  ' 

e-»y_  <>|ttji««^«^>  v 

The  Moral  Quality  of  Faith.  9 1 

universe,   of  the  being  and  character  of  God, — is  the 
direct  product  of  the  radical  affections  of  our  nature, 

and  will  be  false  or  true  simply  as  these  affections  are 

. 
mean  or  noble.     Our  devout  beliefs  are  not  built  as  we      ,v 

suppose,  upon  the  dry  strand  of  reason,  but  ride  upotf"^ 
the  flood  of  our  affections;  safe  and  joyous,  bounding,':*' 
over  its  waves,  when  its  surface  only  plays  with  thec;^  t 
sweet  breeze  of  heaven ;  but  engulfed,  when  it  rages 
in"the  storm  of  passion,  or  fixed  in  stiff  death,  when 
its  flow  is  stopped  by  the  winter  of  an  Arctic  intellect. 
We  do  not  simply  learn  from  experience  what  we  are  to 
think ;  but  we  carry  into  experience  feelings  and  pre- 
conceptions by  which  we  read  and  interpret  experience. 
Faith  is  the  natural  hypothesis  of  a  pure  and  good 
heart,  whence  it  looks  on  the  face  of  nature  and  of  life, 
and  deciphers  and  welcomes  their  diviner  lineaments. 
Want  of  faith  is  the  hypothesis  of  a  low  and  unaspiring 
heart,  which  feels  the  presumption  to  be  against  what- 
ever is  high  and  glorious,  and  gives  the  benefit  of  every 
doubt  to  the  side  of  the  flat  and  mean.  In  some  men 
there  is  surely  a  visible  openness  of  impression  to  what 
is  excellent  and  noble  in  character, — a  readiness  to 
believe  in  goodness, — a  willingness  to  take  for  granted 
that  all  is  right  till  proof  arises  of  something  wrong, — 
a  manifest  assurance  that  at  the  bottom  of  all  things 
lie  the  foundations  of  eternal  truth  and  holiness,  so 
that  whatever  is  faithfully  and  lovingly  done  has  God 
and  nature,  and  therefore  hope  and  promise  on  its  side. 


92  The  Moral  Quality  of  Faith. 

This  presumption  in  favour  of  all  beauty  and  sanctity 
in  human  life,  and  in  the  universe,  is  faith.  It  has  a 
moral  character,  because  it  implies  a  personal  know- 
ledge of  the  higher  principles  and  affections  of  our 
nature  as  able  to  rule  the  lower:  they  have  been 
listened  to  as  oracles  :  they  have  vindicated  themselves 
as  realities  :  they  have  submitted  to  no  fatal  insult, 
but  have  kept  upon  their  lawful  throne.  No  man 
can  believe  in  a  rule  over  creation  which  is  powerless 
over  himself;  or  see  in  other  souls  a  goodness  traceless 
in  his  own. 

We  readily  acknowledge  this  moral  character  of  faith 
in  our  relations  with  one  another.  You  come  for  the 
first  time  into  intercourse  with  a  stranger.  There  is  a 
clear  confiding  light  in  his  eye,  and  a  free  sit  in  his 
features,  and  a  frank  fiow  in  his  speech,  which  make 
you  feel  in  a  moment  that  you  are  not  watched,  but 
trusted ;  that  you  have  no  part  to  play,  no  cautions  to 
adopt,  no  prejudices  to  evade,  but  simply  to  lie  open 
as  you  are,  and  be  believed.  You  are  introduced  to 
another  man,  more  studiously  gracious  perhaps  than 
the  former :  but  the  smile  upon  his  face  is  not  alive ; 
his  laugh  has  not  the  sincere  ring  of  the  vibrating 
soul ;  his  eye  seems  to  carry  his  attention  beyond  what 
you  are  saying  to  yourself;  his  words,  with  all  their 
smooth  flow,  reveal  his  thoughts  and  nature  as  little  as 
a  protocol.  If  you  admire  anything,  you  feel  that  you 
amuse  him  like  a  fresh  child ;  and  if  you  are  indignant 


The  Moral  Quality  of  Faith.  93 

at  some  wrong,  you  see  that  his  response  is  a  flash  of  the 
lips  without  any  charge  within  the  heart.  You  stand 
before  the  unfaith  of  the  critic,  not  with  the  sympathy 
of  the  man ;  and  you  know  what  to  expect,  if  you  say 
a  thing  too  foolish  or  too  wise.  Each  of  these  men 
comes  into  your  society  with  an  hypothesis  lurking  in  his 
heart, — the  one  of  trust, — the  other,  of  distrust :  these 

• 

are  no  conclusions  from  evidence,  no  deliberate  opinions, 
but  the  mere  predispositions  of  their  own  nature. 
Moreover,  when  the  acquaintance  has  ripened  and  you 
have  given  them  real  grounds  for  positively  judging 
you,  the  same  indications  on  your  part  will  produce 
a  different  effect  upon  them :  be  the  signs  of  character 
what  they  may,  they  will  prove  different  things  to  the 
two  men ;  of  whom  one  will  be  the  first  to  believe  the 
evil,  the  other  to  believe  the  good ;  the  one  finds  food 
for  the  appetite  of  derision  where  the  other  makes 
occasion  for  love  and  approbation.  "We  cannot  say  that 
there  are  no  opinions  formed  by  men  of  one  another, 
in  a  true  judicial  spirit :  but  certainly  the  vast  majority 
of  such  judgments  are  mere  self- revelations  showing 
the  native  affinities  of  soul  which  experience  is  used  to 
justify  and  confirm.  The  avidity  for  detraction  springs, 
I  believe,  as  often  from  want  of  faith  as  from  want .  of 
charity.  There  are  some  unhappy  beings,  whose  life 
is  a  long  wasting  with  the  canker  of  jealousy;  who 
have  an  exhaustless  store  of  suspicions  ever  circulating 
among  their  friends ;  on  whom  innocent  words  fall  with 


94  The  Moral  Quality  of  Faith. 

a  sting  and  are  returned  to  you  with  poisoned  point ; 
who  toss  ever  upon  the  fevered  bed  of  scorn,  and 
fall  only  into  troubled  dreams,  and  find  no  Saviour 
to  take  them  by  the  hand,  and  bid  them  rise  to  the 
light  of  love  and  rest.  Had  they  "faith  as  a  grain  of 
mustard  seed,"  they  could  say  to  this  mountain  of 
oppression  on  the  breast,  "Be  thou  removed,  and  be 
thou  cast  into  the  sea,"  and  it  would  be  done  !  But, 
with  them,  the  presumption  is  always  in  favour  of  the 
dark  and  evil :  that  is  the  ground  colour  of  the  universe 
to  them ;  all  else  is  but  a  phenomenal  play  above  the 
surface, — a  fair  and  evanescent  show  that  has  no 
perennial  root,  and  which  the  season's  sunshine  fades 
away.  And  so  a  brooding  night  is  ever  throwing  up 
its  black  waves  again  to  swallow  the  blessed  islands 
that  had  begun  to  be  verdant  in '  the  heart.  No  doubt, 
this  temper  constitutes  in  itself  a  violation  of  charity : . 
indeed  the  three  Christian  graces  of  Faith,  Hope,  and 
Charity,  perish  in  it  hand  in  hand :  but  Faith,  I 
believe,  is  often  the  first  to  die ;  and  then  the  others 
say,  "Let  us  also  go  and  die  with  her."  Indeed  a 
vital  sympathy  binds  these  graces  together  in  the  soul ; 
and  where  one  is  wounded  or  in  bonds,  the  faintness  or 
constraint  will  reach  them  all. 

There  is  indeed  a  certain  temper,  often  usurping  the 
name  of  Charity,  which  springs,  not  from  faith,  but  from 
the  utter  want  of  it ; — an  easy  laxity,  a  good-natured 
indulgence  knyards  the  siufulness  of  men,  arising  from 


The  Moral  Quality  of  Faith.  95 

mere  dim-sightedness  as  to  its  reality ;  a  smiling  com- 
placency to  which  character  is  indifferent,  provided 
enjoyment  and  good  fellowship  are  unimpeded ;  a  sun- 
shine of  mere  animal  cheerfulness,  dry  and  constant 
and  tedious  as  the  staring  summer's  noon,  that  has  no 
tearful  lights,  no  hiding-place  of  majesty  and  storm,  no 
bursts  of  moistened  glory  tracing  a  penitential  way  from 
some  green  spot  of  earth  to  the  veiled  yet  reopened 
purity  of  the  sky.  There  are  those  who  talk  patron- 
isingly  of  forgiving  human  sin,  as  if  it  were  theirs  to 
deal  with  as  they  liked, — as  if  it  were  a  personal  affronb 
to  them,  about  which  they  might  exercise  their  mag- 
nanimity at  will ;  as  if  there  were  no  God  of  awful 
holiness,  in  whose  presence  and  before  whose  law  the 
guilty  and  the  guiltless  stand,  and  with  whose  pity  or 
whose  frown  it  is  not  ours  to  play.  The  spurious  charity 
that  is  simply  tolerant  of  moral  deformity,  because 
untouched  by  aspiration  towards  moral  perfection,  is  an 
odious  burlesque  of  the  pure  Christian  grace.  The 
true  charity  is  not  that  which  thinks  lightly  of  evil,  but 
that  which  is  slow  to  believe  in  it;  whose  presump- 
tions are  ever  those  of  a  trustful  and  holy  heart ;  and 
which,  even  when  a  brother's  guilt  is  indisputably  clear, 
thinks,  amid  its  shock  and  grief,  that  he  has  fallen  from 
his  real  nature,  and  cannot  be  at  peace  with  himself, — 
that  there  must  be  a  better  soul  behind,  where  God's 
long-suffering  solicitation  may  find  a  hearing  yet ;  and 
that  any  how,  through  whatever  suffering  and  discipline, 


96  The  Moral  Quality  of  Faith. 

the  right  ways  of  heaven,  the  everlasting  sanctities, 
must  triumph  in  the  end.  And  so  it  is,  that  without 
faith  there  can  be  no  charity. 

When  we  pass  from  the  domain  of  human  relations 
into  that  of  the  Divine,  we  shall  inevitably  carry  our 
habitual  temper  into  the  survey,  and  our  faith  or  unfaith 
will  be  still  suffused  with  a  moral  colouring.  I  do  not 
say  that  no  other  causes  than  the  predisposition  of  our 
affections  operate  in  determining  religious  belief,  so  that 
we  can  at  all  justly  infer  the  character  from  the  creed. 
Among  men  of  equal  excellence  and  similar  cast  of 
feeling  there  are  doubtless  purely  intellectual  varieties 
of  conviction :  and  we  should  go  fatally  wrong  in  our 
estimate  of  others,  did  we  form  it  by  the  narrow  rule 
of  agreement  with  ourselves.  But  in  measuring  the 
solidity  of  our  own  thoughts  on  Divine  things  we  should 
be  strangely  self-ignorant,  did  we  not  allow  for  the  mood 
in  which  they  visit  us  and  take  their  shape,  and  place 
more  or  less  of  confidence  in  them  according  as  the 
moral  atmosphere  is  large  and  lustrous  within  us,  or 
contracted  by  mists  of  fear  and  dull  with  dejection  of 
heart.  And  to  suppose  that  the  test  which  holds  for 
ourselves  has  no  application  beyond  would  be  to  ignore 
the  plainest  phenomena  of  life :  for  what  fact  is  more 
evident  than  that  men's  views  of  the  unseen  as  of  the 
seen  world,  are,  for  the  most  part,  less  expressive  of 
their  range  of  knowledge  than  of  their  tone  of  senti- 
ment, and,  even  when  affecting  to  be  intellectual  con- 


The  Moral  Quality  of  Faith.  97 

elusions,  betray  the  marks  of  moral  assumptions.  It  is 
the  mere  pedantry  of  liberalism,  to  treat  all  the  humours 
of  religion  and  no-religion  as  so  many  differing  philo- 
sophies, and  to  insist  that  our  sympathies  shall  hold 
towards  them  a  bearing  of  impartial  indifference.  Legal 
equality  they  must  assuredly  have ;  but,  secure  in  this, 
they  must  remain  exposed  to  the  free  play  of  love  and 
aversion  which  flows  around  all  the  indications  of  human 
affection  and  will. 

We  are  not  spontaneously  drawn  to  one  who  is  always 
suspecting  his  friends,  and  who  deems  it  so  natural  a 
thing  for  them  to  wrong  and  hurt  him,  that  he  imagines 
it  on  hints  the  most  inadequate.  When  his  mistrustful 
eye  is  lifted  beyond  the  immediate  circle  and  looks  into 
the  invisible  world,  do  you  expect  its  expression  instantly 
to  change  and  become  sweet  and  childlike  before  God  ? 
It  cannot  be  !  the  habit  of  unrestful  vigilance,  of  court- 
ing the  dark  corners  of  possibility,  of  giving  the  benefit 
of  every  doubt  to  the  worse  alternative,  will  still  assert 
itself,  and  expose  him  to  misgivings  of  Providence,  and 
an  exigent  demeanour  towards  heaven.  The  Cynic  in 
society  becomes  the  Pessimist  in  religion.  The  large 
embrace  of  sympathy  which  fails  him  as  interpreter  of 
human  life,  will  no  less  be  wanting  when  he  reads  the 
meaning  of  the  universe.  The  harmony  of  the  great 
whole  escapes  him  in  his  hunt  for  little  discords  here 
and  there.  He  is  blind  to  the  august  balance  of  nature, 
in  his  preoccupation  with  some  creaking  show  of  defect. 

a 


98  The  Moral  Quality  of  Faith. 

He  misses  the  comprehensive  march  of  advancing  pur- 
pose, because  while  he  himself  is  in  it,  he  has  found 
some  halting  member  that  seems  to  lag  behind.  He 
picks  holes  in  the  universal  order ;  he  winds  through  its 
tracks  as  a  detective ;  and  makes  scandals  of  all  that  is 
not  to  his  mind.  He  trusts  nothing  that  he  cannot  see ; 
and  he  sees  chiefly  the  exceptional,  the  dubious,  the 
harsh.  The  glory  of  the  midnight  heavens  affects  him 
not,  for  thinking  of  a  shattered  planet  or  the  uninhabitable 
moon.  He  makes  more  of  the  flood  which  sweeps  the 
crop  away,  than  of  the  perpetual  river  that  feeds  it  year 
by  year.  For  him  the  purple  bloom  upon  the  hills, 
peering  through  the  young  green  woods,  does  but  dress 
up  a  stony  desert  with  deceitful  beauty;  and  in  the 
new  birth  of  summer,  he  cannot  yield  himself  to  the 
exuberance  of  glad  existence  for  wonder  why  insects 
tease  and  nettles  sting.  Nothing  is  so  fair,  nothing  so 
imposing,  as  to  beguile  him  into  faith  and  hope :  as 
the  language  of  men  is  "  for  the  concealment  of 
thought,"  so  the  professions  of  nature  are  to  be  read  in 
reverse ;  so  that  in  every  promise  he  sees  its  breach ;  in 
every  inspiration,  its  collapse ;  in  every  life,  its  death. 
On  the  soft  cheek  and  clear  eye  and  springing  limbs  of 
the  infant  he  gazes  in  the  spirit  of  a  pathologist,  to  ask 
himself  which  of  them  will  soonest  rot  away ;  and  the 
jubilant  throng  of  playing  schoolboys  suggests  to  him 
the  forecast  of  sad  fates,  from  broken  strength  and 
sickened  hearts,  or  faded  innocence.  In  all  this  melan- 


The  Moral  Qiiality  of  Faith.  99 

choly  -view  there  may  still  remain  a  tinge  of  humane 
regret,  and  the  scepticism  may  hang  compassionately 
round  others  without  a  tone  of  personal  complaint.  But 
in  selfish  minds  the  same  temper  takes  a  meaner  turn, 
and  resorts  to  the  pettiest  reasons  for  the  most  deso- 
lating thoughts:  "If  God  were  good  why  should  I 
be  born  with  a  club-foot?  if  the  world  were  justly 
governed,  how  could  my  merits  be  so  long  overlooked?" 
It  is  not  often  that  this  moral  defect  of  faith  works 
itself  out  into  such  full-formed  type.  But  the  germ  of 
it  lurks  in  us  all,  and  puts  forth  its  tendency  at  least  in 
transient  moods,  when  the  vision  is  dim  and  the  heart 
is  low.  In  flat  and  heavy  hours,  the  tones  of  conscience 
are  so  .muffled  that,  by  not  listening  we  can  miss  them, 
and  can  say  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  "it  is  nought."  Amid 
the  tragedies  of  life,  in  the  haste  of  sudden  grief  or  the 
crises  of  appalling  suspense,  the  quick  and  vehement 
waves  of  passion  that  sweep  within  us  break  angrily 
against  the  steadfast  sternness  of  nature ;  we  resent  its 
silence,  we  deprecate  its  periodicity,  we  are  in  despair 
at  its  calmness,  and  say  "it  is  the  face  of  the  blind:" 
we  forget  the  long  years  quickened  by  the  felt  life  and 
love  of  God,  and  the  high  moments  kindled  by  his 
freshest  Inspiration ;  Lr  it  is  strange  and  sad  how 
small  and  brief  a  darkness  may  quench  for  us  an 
everlasting  Sun.  The  healthy  mind  has  no  deeper 
assurance,  none  closer  to  the  very  springs  of  its  energy, 
than  that  it  is  entrusted  with  itself,  able  to  rise  with 

H  2 


ioo         The  Moral  Quality  of  Faith. 

wing  that  strengthens  in  the  flight,  or  to  drop  into 
unfathomable  fall.  But  when  the  moral  nerve  relaxes 
and  life  is  looked  at  more  than  lived,  sickly  subtleties 
invade  us,  and,  fitting  us  into  tne  universal  mechan- 
ism, oppress  us  with  the  ancient  nightmare  of  fate. 
Has  the  time  come  when  some  dear  saintly  soul 
vanishes  from  our  side,  and  leaves  us  to  our  lonely 
path  ? — As  we  think  of  all  his  noble  and  lovely  ways, 
the  realised  heights,  the  ever-growing  depths  of  his 
nature,  nothing  seems  more  natural  and  sure  than  his 
migration  into  a  sanctity  of  larger  and  immortal  scope. 
But  if,  holding  the  vigils  of  death  till  we  are  faint 
and  numb,  we  cease  to  listen  to  our  love  and  let  go 
the  visions  of  our  memory,  and  surrender  our  weakness 
to  the  waxen  look  and  cold  touch  of  those  shrunk 
features ;  if  in  imagination  we  are  dragged  along  the 
physiological  history  because  easy  to  conceive,  and 
baffled  by  the  spiritual,  because  it  has  no  pictures  to 
help  it ;  ami  if  thus  we  permit  ourselves  to  dwell  on 
the  unanswerable  problems  of  so  transcendent  a  hope  ; 
it  wavers  from  too  sharp  a  contrast  with  the  present 
darkness,  and  fades  from  sight  by  very  immensity  of 
glory.  In  all  these  experiences,  we  blindly  yield  to 
material  pressures,  and  sink  always  from  the  native 
faiths  of  our  higher  mind;  we  go  over,  not  to  more 
valid  evidence,  but  only  to  meaner  suspicions  ;  and  are 
like  one  who  is  ready,  in  unhappy  mood,  to  forego  a 
lifelong  confidence  in  the  first  of  friends  and  give  heed 


The  Moral  Quality  of  Faith.         101 

• 
asrainst  him  to  some  paltry  calumny.     It  is  an  offence, 

not  less  against  the  calmness  of  Season  than  the 
constancy  of  love,  to  he  thus  haunted  by  the  visions 
of  an  untrustful  mind,  and,  like  some  poor  sleep- 
walker, be  led  by  ghosts  of  fear  over  marsh  and  moor 
till  the  home  of  rest  is  lost.  Be  it  ours,  in  all  things 
human  and  divine,  to  keep  the  good  heart  of  faith ; 
and  as  we  accept  the  clearness  of  a  brother's  face  and 
the  simplicity  of  his  word  and  the  freedom  of  his 
affection,  so  to  throw  ourselves  open  to  the  expression 
of  God's  life  and  love,  in  the  beauty  of  the  world,  in 
the  law  of  conscience,  in  the  ample  range  of  thought 
and  aspiration,  and  in  the  promises,  already  pressing  to 
fulfilment,  of  saints  and  prophets.  It  is  never  a  good 
sign,  be  it  remembered,  when  doubts  beset  us  founded 
on  no  better  reason  than  that  the  thing  in  question  is 
"  too  good  to  be  true."  The  suggestion,  we  may  then 
be  sure,  is  not  from  our  best  and  noblest  mind;  and 
should  be  dealt  with,  less  as  an  honest  plea,  than  as  a 
low  temptation,  and  swept  away  as  an  ungenial  mist, 
by  a  breath  of  fresh  affection,  clearing  the  stars  again. 
There  can  be  no  pure  intellectual  eye  for  heavenly 
truth,  till  this  meaner  order  of  moral  suspicions  is 
dismissed  with  the  quick  and  resolute  prayer  "  Lord,  I 
believe,  help  thou  mine  unbelief  I1 ' 


vm. 

gibitw  <fusfia  atttr  |)ar!twtt 


1  JOHN  i.  8,  9. 

"If  we  say  that  we  have  no  sin,  we  deceive  ourselves  and  the  truth  is 
not  in  us.  If  we  confess  our  sins,  he  is  faithful  and  just  to  forgive  us 
our  sius  and  to  cleanse  us  from  all  unrighteousness." 

THERE  are  two  extreme  tendencies  in  human  senti- 
ment respecting  God,  from  which  a  devout  and 
thoughtful  heart  shrinks  with  equal  repugnance ; 
a  religion  which  begins  with  fear,  and  a  religion 
that  ends  without  it.  On  the  one  hand  is  the 
passionate  faith  of  remorse,  which  throws  the 
shade  of  its  own  despair  upon  the  universe  of  God ; 
lies  prostrate  in  the  dark  cell  of  alienation ;  and 
declares  that,  if  no  mediator  interpose,  there  is  no 
hope  or  respite  from  the  curse  of  inexorable  Law. 
On  the  other  is  the  creed  of  lenient  good  nature, 
which  spreads  the  light  of  its  mild  indifference  over 
all  things ;  considers  the  sins  of  men  as  chiefly  venial 
frailties  ;  is  pleased  with  its  own  tolerance ;  and  trusts 
that  Heaven  will  overlook  what  it  must  have  foreseen 


Divine  Justice  and  Pardon  Reconciled.   103 

and  did  not  think  worth  while  to  prevent.  The  former 
places  us  under  a  rule  so  pure,  that  the  faintest  guilt 
appears  before  it  as  something  infinite ;  and  beneath 
a  law  so  strict,  that  the  word  it  speaks  can  never  be 
recalled.  The  latter  represents  the  Sovereign  Judge  as 
measuring  sin  rather  by  the  standard  of  our  weakness 
than  of  his  own  true  perception, — as  full  of  tender 
allowance  for  a  tempted  nature, — as  holding  out  to  our 
aim  an  ideal  which  he  does  not  really  expect  us  to 
reach, — and  as  leaving  it  to  be  understood,  that  if  there 
be  only  some  decent  approach  towards  his  standard,  he 
would  be  glad  of  a  pretext  for  avoiding  painful  severities. 
The  former  would  deserve  the  praise  of  moral  loftiness, 
were  it  not  used  as  a  mere  prelude  to  a  doctrine  of 
atonement  offensive  to  every  sentiment  of  right.  The 
latter  might  boast  of  vindicating  the  divine  clemency, 
but  for  making  free  with  it  on  somewhat  easy  and 
sinful  terms.  Indeed,  by  a  singular  inconsistency,  the 
former  overstrains  the  law  of  conscience  in  order  to 
prove  it  impracticable  and  get  rid  of  it :  the  latter  too 
amiably  relaxes  it,  in  order  to  retain  its  force.  The 
system  which  most  depreciates  morality  starts  with  the 
sternest  view  of  duty ;  and  that  which  is  most  exclu- 
sively moral  begins  with  frittering  obligation  away. 

Think  what  it  is  to  affirm,  that  amendment  only  is 
needful  to  forgiveness,  and  that  from  penitent  sin  the 
punishments  of  God  are  freely  withdrawn.  Does  the 
guilt  then  go  for  nothing  with  him,  and  are  his 


IO4  Divine  Justice  and  Pardon  Reconciled. 

penalties  an  empty  threat  ?  May  his  law  be  violated, 
his  oracle  of  conscience  insulted,  his  expostulating 
spirit  quenched,  with  impunity,  provided  only  this  does 
not  run  on  to  the  end  ?  Does  he  treat  his  children 
entirely  according  to  their  present  temper,  and  make  no 
difference  for  their  previous  unfaithfulness  ?  Then  it 
is  quite  false  that  he  "  rewards  every  man  according  to 
his  works " :  he  puts  on  the  same  footing  the  old 
offender  and  the  young  saint :  he  thinks  nothing  of  the 
hugest  amount  of  wickedness,  once  thrust  into  the 
past:  his  word,  so  solemnly  given  against  it,  is  all 
recalled,  and  its  warning  was  never  more  than  a  pious 
fraud,  like  the  nursemaid's  threat  to  give  the  refractory 
child  to  the  black  man.  Everything  veracious,  every- 
thing august,  everything  holy  vanishes  from  a  govern- 
ment thus  pretending  to  inflexible  rules  yet  surrendering 
all  to  the  pressure  of  the  moment. 

And  yet,  it  seems  equally  difficult  to  maintain  as  to 
deny  the  strict  veracity  of  the  Divine  warnings  and 
promises.  Is  the  presage  of  the  guilty  mind  literally 
true,  and  does  every  sin  find  us  exactly  out,  and  pay  us 
just  our  due  ?  Is  the  word  of  Heaven,  that  is  gone 
forth  against  the  wilful,  never  made  void,  and  precisely 
"  as  a  man  soweth  so  also  must  he  reap  "  ?  Alas ! 
then,  what  hope  remains  for  us?  for  then  is  there 
"  no  place  for  repentance  "  though  we  "  seek  it  care- 
fully with  tears."  If  the  accounts  of  justice  are  strictly 
kept ;  if  their  balance  is  earned  forward  from  page  to 


Divine  Justice  and  Pardon  Reconciled.   105 

page ;  if  it  is  impossible  for  us  ever  to  overpay,  and 
certain  that  we  are  always  falling  short ;  what  can 
prevent  the  reckoning  from  being  ever  worse,  and  our 
existence  from  being  burdened  and  borne  down  by  an 
everlasting  debt  ?  The  past  breathes  despair  upon  the 
present,  and  sends  its  icy  wind  on  every  fresh  and 
blossoming  growth  within  the  heart.  Could  we  but 
throw  off  the  weary  nightmare  beneath  which  we  feebly 
gasp,  could  we  spring  up  and  start  anew,  the  forces  of 
the  soul  are  not  yet  broken,  but  are  young  and  hope- 
ful still :  only,  while  chained  to  this  mortal  weight, 
they  lie  as  if  crushed  and  dead.  We  cannot  stir  till 
we  are  pardoned ;  yet  cannot  be  pardoned  till  we  stir. 
Thus,  if  there  be  forgiveness  with  God,  it  cannot  but 
loosen  the  tie  between  conduct  and  its  consequences ; 
or,  if  that  tie  be  strict,  there  can  be  no  forgiveness. 

There  is  no  more  serious  dilemma  presented  by 
human  faith  than  this;  nor  any  more  productive  of 
looseness  and  confusion  in  the  soul.  Minds  not  much 
in  earnest  about  their  moral  and  spiritual  life  may  not 
feel  it  or  may  suppose  it  a  mere  nicety  of  theory ;  for 
it  is  not  the  character  of  such  minds  to  demand  any 
unity  or  consistency  in  their  religion  :  they  are  content 
with  a  plain  truth  here,  and  a  good  rule  there,  a  little 
that  is  pretty  sure  to  be  right,  and  a  great  deal  that 
can  hardly  be  wrong :  but  taking  up  each  in  turn  as  an 
external  thing,  and  finding  for  none  a  vital  root  within 
the  soul,  they  are  unconscious  of  incoherencies  and 


io6  Divine  Justice  and  Pardon  Reconciled. 

contradictions  by  which  many  a  loving  heart  would  be 
torn  to  pieces.  These  easy  believers  cheerfully  worship 
the  good-natured  God,  and  deny  all  difficulties.  But  to 
whomsoever  the  human  surface  of  things  has  opened 
and  shown  the  divine ;  to  whomsoever  mere  wrong  has 
deepened  into  sin  and  regret  into  remorse ;  whoever  has 
found  the  need  of  forgiveness  to  be  a  want  more  real 
and  urgent  than  that  of  daily  bread;  whoever  cannot 
be  off  and  on  with  his  Maker,  as  in  the  play  of  taste 
and  mood,  but  must  see  himself  an  outcast  or  be 
reconciled ;  whoever,  in  short,  lives  instead  of  dreams ; 
— he  well  knows,  that  this  perplexity  is  speculative 
only  to  those  whose  religion  is  not  practical ;  and  that 
to  the  daily  task  of  service,  the  hourly  spirit  of  peace, 
nothing  is  more  needful  than  a  clear  and  uncontradicted 
light  of  divine  forgiveness. 

The  truth  is,  it  is  a  hard  thing  for  our  narrow  mine1 
to  take  in  the  infinite  harmony  of  Divine  perfection. 
Our  conscience  and  our  affections  make  incompatible 
demands  on  God.  We  require  for  our  support  that  he 
be  faithful ;  we  look,  for  our  comfort's  sake,  that  he  be 
tender  too.  Certainly,  if  we  are  to  trust  in  his  holi- 
ness, there  must  be  a  law  sure  and  universal,  that  binds 
together  guilt  and  punishment ;  a  law  without  excep- 
tion to  its  grasp,  without  swerving  in  its  execution. 
It  is  to  reveal  this  law  that  the  misgivings  of  conscience 
shake  us  with  their  awful  voice  ;  that  spectral  shadows 
flit  across  the  heart  of  guilty  gaiety ;  that  boldness 


Divine  Jiistice  and  Pardon  Reconciled.   107 

before  the  sin  sinks  into  abjectness  after  it ;  that,  in 
proportion  as  we  lose  our  moral  count,  and  the  skein 
of  life,  wound  no  longer  smoothly  off,  is  ravelled  into  a 
broken  and  tangled  waste,  we  rush  into  vain  distractions 
to  quell  the  fever  of  our  secret  misery,  and  yet  find  no 
peace.  To  assure  us  of  this  law  it  is,  that  our  only 
rest  is  found  in  true  simplicity ;  that  under  the  clouds 
of  evil  passion  the  mind  is  tossed  and  heaves  in  storm, 
but  under  the  heaven  of  pure  affections,  lies  calm  as 
the  summer  sea  ;  that,  till  the  stubbornness  of  pride 
gives  way,  there  is  no  quiet  in  the  soul,  no  smoothness 
on  the  brow,  but  only  furrows  of  ever-deepening  care  ; 
that  the  stiff  Will  of  self,  so  rigid  to  resist,  proves 
feeble  to  achieve,  and  gets  no  power,  save  to  fret  itself 
and  others,  till  it  is  melted  by  some  noble  inner  love, 
and  flows  down  into  the  moulds  of  a  divine  obedience. 
It  is  an  ineradicable  faith,  that  every  tendency  to  dis- 
turbance and  disorder  follows  the  direction  of  human 
guilt ;  and  that  every  approach  to  repose  is  on  the  path 
of  human  faithfulness.  No  shade  of  doubt  is  to  be 
cast  upon  this  faith  ;  it  is  as  much  our  primitive, 
instinctive  guidance,  as  our  expectation  of  the  future 
from  the  past.  As,  for  purposes  of  knowledge,  it  is 
appointed  us  to  believe  that  the  sun  which  has  risen 
today  will  rise  tomorrow ;  so,  for  the  ends  of  duty,  it 
is  given  us  to  feel  that  sin  has  a  bitter  fruit  to  ripen, 
and  that  having  sown  the  wind,  we  shall  reap  the  whirl- 
wind. This  is  the  corner-stone  of  our  whole  structure  of 


1 08  Divine  Justice  and  Pardon  Reconciled. 

confidence  in  the  moral  government  of  God.  Without 
it  every  lost  battle  of  justice  would  appear  irretrievable, 
every  truth,  eclipsed  for  the  moment,  would  seem  as  if 
quenched  for  ever ;  and  the  hope  which  has  supported 
injured  goodness  in  every  age,  which  has  taken  away 
the  edge  of  suffering  and  the  terrors  of  death, — the 
assurance  that  God  and  time  are  on  the  side  of  right 
and  will  put  its  persecutors  to  shame,  would  be  at  once 
the  highest  sublimity,  yet  the  vainest  reliance  of  our 
world.  If  anywhere  in  this  universe  it  were  discovered 
that  the  law  of  cause  and  effect  did  not  universally 
hold,  that  the  conditions  under  which  physical  phe- 
nomena occurred  were  not  steady,  that  the  supposed 
connections  of  events  were  broken,  and  the  signs  of 
their  coming  which  were  noted  on  one  day  could  not 
serve  for  another;  this  would  be  the  death-blow  to 
human  science, — a  proclamation  that  creation  had  run 
wild, — that  nature,  relapsing  into  chaos,  was  knowable 
no  more.  Not  less  true  is  it,  that  if,  anywhere  upon 
the  track  of  time,  one  sin  were  found  to  have  escaped 
its  menaced  punishment,  if  the  rule  were  seen  to  waver 
and  relent  which  joins  suffering  to  the  faithless  will 
as  its  inseparable  shadow,  if  ever  He  who  "  sets  the 
poor  with  princes  "  were  to  set  the  wicked  with  his 
saints ;  this  would  be  the  death-blow  to  all  moral 
faith, — a  declaration  that  the  foundations  of  life  were 
crumbling  beneath  our  feet, — a  premonition  of  universal 
dissolution.  As  reason  cannot  move  without  pre- 


Divine  Jtistice  and  Pardon  Reconciled.   109 

suming  on  the  uniformity  of  nature ;  so  must  conscience 
rely  on  the  unchangeableness  of  Law ;  and  can  worship 
only  a  God  pledged  never  to  treat  those  who  have  been 
guilty  like  those  who  have  not. 

And  yet,  if  this  be  all,  the  truth  is  more  terrible 
than  we  can  bear,  and  God  severer  than  we  can  love. 
Does  he  then  judge  always  by  the  past,  and  shut  the 
door  conclusively  on  the  moments  as  they  go,  so  that 
the  touch  of  the  present,  and  the  cry  of  its  entreaties 
can  reach  them  no  more  ?  Is  there  no  meaning  in  the 
prayer  "  Blot  out  my  transgressions,  and  remember  not 
my  sins  "  ?  no  divine  truth  in  that  saying,  "  Her  sins, 
which  are  many,  are  forgiven ;  for  she  loved  much  "  ? 
Did  it  make  no  difference  to  Peter,  that  a  look  recalled 
him,  and  he  went  out  and  wept  bitterly  ?  Whence 
then  the  "joy  in  heaven  over  the  sinner  that  re- 
penteth  "  ?  If  compassion  be  impossible  to  God,  it  is 
strange  that  he  has  implanted  any  in  us ;  for  he  has 
more  reason  to  pity  us,  than  we  can  have  to  pity  one 
another; — we,  gazing  in  the  face  of  an  equal  and  a 
brother;  he,  looking  from  his  serene  Almightiness 
down  upon  our  nature,  tempted,  sorrowing,  struggling, 
dying.  No,  it  is  as  much  a  part  of  perfection  to 
-  receive  the  penitent  as  to  reprove  the  sin ;  unless  the 
noblest  impulse  of  the  human  soul  seeks  vainly  for  its 
image  and  prototype  in  him.  Indeed  it  is  matter  of 
experience  that  contrition,  with  all  its  sadness,  is  not 
without  its  answer  of  relief.  -At  first,  no  doubtj, 


no  Divine  Justice  and  Pardon  Reconciled. 

transgression  drives  us  from  before  his  face,  and  we 
wander  in  awful  solitudes  like  Cain.  But  the  banish- 
ment is  too  dreary  to  be  borne.  We  are  first  stopped 
in  our  flight  to  sit  down  and  think  upon  our  shame  ; 
and  then  are  drawn  to  steal  back,  and  doubtfully  seek 
the  old  neighbourhood  again ;  and  its  dear  looks  smite 
us  to  the  heart,  till  we  lift  up  our  voice  and  weep 
aloud,  saying  '  If  perchance  the  Lord  would  look  upon 
our  tears  ' ;  and  at  length  we  hint  our  prayer  no  more, 
but  catch  his  very  eye,  and  say  '  Lord  put  me  to  grief, 
but  cast  me  not  off :  not  from  thine  absence,  but  from 
thy  hand,  let  me  receive  thy  chastisement :  let  me  be 
stricken,  but  bear  with  me  here  :  thy  darkest  frown  is 
better  to  my  soul  than  the  dry  light  upon  the  'wilder- 
ness of  exile.'  And  with  this  self -surrender  there 
comes  an  unexpected  peace,  so  sad  and  solemn  that 
surely  it  is  the  response  of  God  ;  and  must  be  accepted 
as  a  token  that,  truly,  "  the  contrite  heart  he  does  not 
despise."  If  therefore,  on  the  one  hand,  he  cannot 
treat  penitent  sin  as  if  it  were  innocence,  so  neither,  on 
the  .other,  can  he  treat  it  like  impenitence :  and  the 
present  temper  reflects  back  some  light  upon  the  past 
transgression. 

But  how,  alas,  you  will  still  say,  can  these  things 
both  be  ?  how  can  God  at  once  swerve  no  hair's- 
breadth  from  his  threatened  punishment ;  and  yet  be 
ever  ready  to  forgive  ?  Rightly  to  understand  this,  we 
must  mark  the  distinction  between  his  interior  nature 


Divine  Justice  and  Pardon  Reconciled.   1 1 1 

and  his  external  government,  between  what  he  is  in 
himself  and  what  he  has  written  out  and  proclaimed  in 
the  legislation  of  this  universe.  Not  all  that  dwells 
in  his  thought  and  lives  in  his  heart  has  he  put  forth ; 
and  vast  as  is  the  field,  and  sublime  the  record,  of 
creation  ;  solemn  as  we  find  the  path  of  life,  and  awful 
the  insight  of  the  conscience  ;  these  are  but  a  part  of 
his  ways ;  and  there  is  yet  a  hiding-place  of  his 
thunder  that  none  can  understand.  Everything  in  him 
is  infinite  ;  and  all  the  splendour  of  his  revelation  in 
the  old  earth  and  in  the  older  sky,  and  on  the  heart  of 
humanity,  and  even  in  the  unique  life  of  the  Man  of 
sorrows,  are  but  a  few  front  lines  of  light,  streaking 
the  surface  of  immensity.  He  says  to  us  much ;  but 
he  is  silent  more :  his  law  is  open  and  remains  ;  his 
Spirit  that  made  it  abides  behind,  and  is  committed  to 
nothing  save  by  its  own  nature  to  all  that  is  beautiful 
and  perfect.  Thus,  his  infinite  disapprobation  of  sin 
has  not  all  found  utterance  :  part  is  expressed,  and  part 
reserved.  The  former  is  embodied  in  the  moral  law 
and  stamped  into  our  moral  nature  :  it  is  written  on 
the  agitated  brow  of  passion  and  gleams  from  the  eyes 
of  guilty  men  :  it  is  heard  in  the  sighs  of  the  broken 
will,  in  the  plaint  of  purifying  sorrow  and  the  sweet 
hymns  of  souls  redeemed  and  peaceful.  The  latter  is 
not  embodied  at  all :  it  is  a  free  existence  :  no  lines 
define  it,  no  bound  encloses  it :  it  is  as  the  divine 
colour  of  all  truth  and  majesty  without  its  form,  with 


ii2  Divine  Justice  and  Pardon  Reconciled. 

hues  ready  to  bathe  all  things  but  fixed  on  none. 
Now,  exactly  corresponding  to  this  division  between  the 
legislated  word  and  the  secret  thought  of  God,  there  is 
a  distinction  in  the  guilt  of  man :  part  comes  out  in 
action  and  part  remains  behind ;  the  one  fixing  itself 
in  ineffaceable  characters  in  the  realm  of  nature ;  the 
other  diffusing  a  taint  of  degradation  through  the 
secret  soul.  Here  too,  the  element  which  pushes  itself 
into  expression  is  finite  :  it  is  an  overt  and  determinate 
offence,  bringing  nameable  mischiefs,  and  inflicting 
visible  and  calculable  wrongs  :  but  the  evil  spirit  which 
has  shot  out  this  curse  is  something  infinite,  and  is 
conscious,  if  ever  its  vision  becomes  true,  of  a  vileness 
that  has  no  bounds,  a  sinfulness  which  no  definition 
can  enclose.  Both  lie  exposed  to  God's  holy  disap- 
probation :  the  act  however  to  his  expressed  displeasure 
and  purpose  of  retribution  :  the  deformed  mind  to  his 
reserved  abhorrence.  With  respect  to  the  perpetrated 
volition  he  has  irrevocably  committed  himself:  his 
veracity  is  pledged  to  go  on :  his  word  has  gone  forth, 
which  binds  together  guilt  and  pain,  and  it  cannot 
return  unto  him  void.  Not  one  consequence  which  he 
has  annexed  to  wrong-doing  will  fail  to  appear  with 
relentless  punctuality :  no  miracle  will  interpose  to 
conduct  away  the  lightning  of  retribution.  "Within 
that  realm  of  law  and  nature,  he  is  inexorable,  and 
has  put  the  freedom  of  pity  quite  away ;  and  as  the 
Atlantic  storm  turns  not  aside  to  avoid  the  ship  where 


Divine  Justice  and  Pardon  Reconciled.    1 1 3 

sanctity  or  genius  are  afloat,  so  neither  does  the 
tempest  of  justice  falter  and  pause  to  spare  the  head 
uplifted  in  repentant  prayer.  But  it  is  otherwise  with 
respect  to  the  soul  and  person  of  the  sinner  himself : 
the  sentiments  of  God  towards  him  are  not  bound : 
and  if,  while  the  deed  of  the  past  is  an  irrevocable 
transgression,  the  temper  of  the  present  is  one  of 
surrender  and  return,  there  is  nothing  to  sustain  the 
Divine  aversion  or  hinder  the  outflow  of  infinite  pity. 
Free  as  our  soul  is  to  come  back  and  cry  at  the  gate  ; 
so  free  is  He  to  open  and  fold  us  gently  to  his  heart 
again.  Weak  indeed  from  the '  waste  of  all  our 
strength,  lame  with  our  many  wounds,  in  peril  from 
our  dim  sight,  and  pain  from  treasured  agonies,  we 
must  still  be  ;  and  God  can  only  say  '  My  poor  child, 
I  cannot  help  thee  here  :  this  burden  must  thou  carry- 
to  its  end.'  But  still  the  penitent  lives  no  outcast 
life  :  the  light  of  reconciliation  is  upon  him  :  he  suffers 
and  is  very  faint,  and  often  his  heavy  cross  weighs  him 
to  the  earth  :  but  he  can  bear  the  scourge  of  nature, 
now  that  he  is  withered  by  no  scorching  look  of  God. 
Wrestling  with  the  Almighty  no  longer,  he  can  move 
on  upon  his  journey  with  a  cheerful  heart,  though  ever 
after  halting  on  his  staff.  And  so  ceases  the  contradiction 
between  the  exactitude  of  Justice  and  the  tenderness  of 
Pity ;  and  we  may  say  with  understanding  heart  "  If 
we  confess  our  sin,  he  is  faithful  and  just  to  forgive  us' 
our  sins,  and  to  cleanse  us  from  all  unrighteousness." 

I 


IX. 

m\ta 


LUKE  x.  21. 

"  In  that  hour  Jesus  rejoiced  in  spirit  and  said,  I  thank  thee,  0 
Father,  Lord  of  heaven  and  earth,  that  thou  hast  hid  these  things  from 
the  wise  and  prudent,  and  hast  revealed  them  unto  babes ;  even  so, 
Father;  for  so  it  seemed  good  in  thy  sight." 

THAT  the  sage  should  miss  what  the  infant  can  see 
seems  at  first  but  little  possible,  and  still  less  a  subject 
of  thankfulness.  It  would  appear  to  discourage  the 
highest  attributes  of  our  nature,  to  throw  contempt  on 
the  patience  of  thought,  and  cruelly  to  visit  the  prayer 
for  light  with  the  deeper  darkness.  Can  it  be  that  the 
more  pains  we  take  to  know,  the  less  will  the  truth  be 
found  ;  that  the  rich  and  practised  mind  is  at  a  dis- 
advantage compared  with  the  inexperienced  and  empty  ? 
And  if  so,  why  exult  in  the  frustration  of  the  noblest 
of  human  aims,  and  the  confiscation  of  the  prize  to 
those  who  have  no  aim  at  all  ?  Many  a  zealot,  baffled 
by  the  acumen  or  indifference  of  more  polished  minds, 
has  found  in  these  words  consolation  for  his  own  igno- 


God  Revealed  unto  Babes.  1 1 5 

ranee  and  the  rudeness  of  his  followers  ;  as  also  in  the 
similar  words  of  Paul,  "  Ye  see  your  calling,  brethren, 
how  that  not  many  wise  men  after  the  flesh,  not  many 
mighty,  not  many  noble,  are  called ;  but  God  hath 
chosen  the  foolish  things  of  the  world  to  confound  the 
wise,  and  the  weak  things  of  the  world  to  confound  the 
things  that  are  mighty;  and  the  base  things  of  the 
world,  and  the  things  that  are  despised  hath  God 
chosen,  yea,  and  things  that  are  not,  to  bring  to  nought 
things  that  are  ;  that  no  flesh  should  glory  in  his 
presence."  Tertuliian,  for  example,  dwells  with  a 
savage  satisfaction  on  the  supposed  exclusion  from  the 
kingdom  of  God  of  whatever  we  hold  fair  and  great  in 
the  old  heathen  world  and  richest  for  the  adornment 
of  all  time  ;  and  exults  in  peopling  it  with  hordes  of 
triumphant  barbarians  like  himself.  Is  this  the  spirit 
of  Christ's  thanksgiving  ?  Are  we  required,  out  of 
sympathy  with  it,  to  believe  Socrates  an  outcast  and 
clap  our  hands  as  he  vanishes  from  hope  ?  to  stifle  our 
reverence  for  ^JEschylus  and  Plato, — for  the  Scipios  and 
Antonines, — and  declare  God's  preference  for  mendicant 
monks  and  illiterate  missionaries  ?  Must  we  condemn, 
as  secular  and  carnal,  our  own  natural  admiration  for 
the  gifts  of  wisdom, — the  disciplined  powers,  the  large 
and  supple  thought,  the  balanced  feeling,  the  accurate 
expression,  of  a  well-cultured  nature, — and  force  our- 
selves into  harmony  of  taste  with  the  raw  religion  of  un- 
mellowed  sectaries, — their  loud  voice,  their  rude  speech, 

i  2 


1 1 6  God  Revealed  unto  Babes. 

their  narrow  zeal,  their  tumultuous  inspirations  ?  Far 
from  it.  It  is  not  intellect  from  which  God  hides  him- 
self, but  selfishness  and  pride  ;  which  may  belong  alike 
to  taught  and  untaught,  and  darken  the  soul  of  sophist 
or  of  clown.  The  words  of  Christ  no  doubt  imply  that 
knowledge  of  other  things  may  co-exist  with  blindness 
as  to  that  which  is  divine ;  and  the  apprehension  of 
divine  truth  with  ignorance  of  other  things.  And  how 
it  is,  that  the  two  kinds  of  discernment  are  separable, 
without  being  incompatible,  will  be  evident  if  we  unfold 
a  little  their  difference  of  nature. 

There  is  light  both  in  the  "babe"  and  in  the 
"  wise  "  :  but  in  the  former  it  is  wholly  spontaneous ; 
in  the  latter  it  is  chiefly  derivative.  In  its  infancy,  the 
soul  simply  apprehends  what  is  given  it  to  perceive ; 
lies  confidingly  on  the  bosom  of  nature  and  lets  the 
morning  beams  come  into  the  full  and  wondering  eyes ; 
does  not  read  off  by  skilful  signs  the  absent  and  the 
future,  but  mingles  with  the  present  and  takes  it  in ; 
starts  no  doubts,  is  entangled  in  no  reflections,  but  lives 
straight  out  of  the  unquestioned  instincts  of  the  hour. 
Later  on,  this  impulsive  freshness  is  all  changed. 
Second-hand  information  is  added  to  the  first :  the 
order  of  events  and  the  classification  of  objects  are 
registered:  much  that  is  invisible  is  ascertained  by 
analogy,  and  that  is  yet  to  come  predicted  by  laws  of 
succession;  and  by  well  organized  combinations  of 
thought  new  deductions  arise,  new  possibilities  disclose 


God  Revealed  unto  Babes.  1 1 7 

themselves,  new  courses  of  imagination  are  open,  that 
withdraw  us  ever  further  from  the  primitive  sources, 
and  make  us  forget,  in  the  fertile  plains  and  park- 
landscapes  of  our  migration,  the  lonely  uplands  of  our 
birth.  We  have  reached  so  much  by  circuitous  paths 
and  mediate  contrivance,  that  the  early  starting-point 
and  assumed  base  of  all  our  mental  reckoning  has  been 
lost :  we  no  longer  know  the  simple  from  the  complex, 
the  artificial  from  the  natural  in  thought :  we  use  the 
tissue  which  we  have  woven  to  dispute  the  fibre  of 
which  it  is  made;  and  follow  down  the  streams  of 
reasoning,  exploring  as  we  go,  in  hope  of  truths  that 
all  the  while  lie  far  up  at  the  fountain  head.  It  is 
this  loss  of  the  habit  of  natural  trust,  this  tendency 
to  anxious  quest  of  something  distant  instead  of  pure 
repose  on  what  is  here,  that,  according  to  Christ's 
prayer,  hides  God  from  the  "  wise  and  prudent."  And, 
'conversely,  it  is  the  surrender  to  spontaneous  light  and 
love,  the  simple  passing  out  upon  it  into  life,  without 
doubt  of  its  guidance  or  scrutiny  of  its  claims,  that 
reveals  him  unto  "  babes." 

How  profoundly  true  this  is, — that  in  divine  things 
the  little  child  may  know  what  the  great  philosopher 
may  miss, — will  appear  if  you  only  think  what  God 
is,  and  whether  he  is  likely  to  be  discovered  on  any 
explorer's  track  or  by  any  artifice  of  calculation.  Two 
things  science  enables  us  to  do,  from  which  all  its 
triumphs  spring.  It  shows  us  how  to  put  the  parts 


1 1 8  God  Revealed  unto  Babes. 

and  products  of  nature  into  true  classes;  and  it 
qualifies  us  to  foresee  phenomena  else  unsuspected. 
But  God  is  neither  a  being  to  be  classified,  nor  a 
phenomenon  to  be  foreseen.  Such  procedures  of  the 
mind  are  quite  inapplicable,  except  to  the  finite  and 
the  transient ;  and  he  who  goes  forth  upon  them  may 
find  whatever  begins  to  be,  but  not  that  which  for  ever 
is;  may  rightly  dispose  of  this  and  that,  but  never 
meet  the  All  in  All.  As  well  might  you  attempt  to 
put  space  under  your  microscope,  or  weigh  gravitation 
in  your  scales.  If  you  believe  that  God  exists,  and 
understand  your  words  when  you  call  him  "  infinite  " 
and  "  eternal,"  you  cannot  expect  to  find  him  as  one 
object  among  many,  but  as  a  Spirit  in  all ,  the  living 
reality  of  all  appearance  ;  the  firmament  of  thought 
that  holds  the  stars  ;  the  omnipresent  deep  that  throws 
up  the  tides  of  history  and  the  ripplings  of  private  care  ; 
the  sole  power  of  the  universe  without ;  the  archetype 
of  the  free  soul  within  ;  and  the  secret  source  of  the 
meaning  that  dwells  in  everything.  Were  he  at  all 
away,  we  might  step  forth  to  seek  him  ;  did  he  ever 
slumber,  we  might  watch  for  the  date  of  his  waking 
times.  But  living  for  ever  in  us  and  around  us,  he 
does  not  enable  us  to  compare  his  presence  with  his 
•;  absence  :  if  we  miss  him,  it  is  from  his  perpetuity  and 
nearness ;  if  we  meet  him,  it  is  not  by  feeling  after 
him  abroad,  but  by  dropping  inwards  and  returning 
home.  The  differences  by  which  he  is  revealed  are  in 


God  Revealed  unto  Babes.  119 

us  and  not  in  him  ;  in  our  faculty  of  recognition,  by  no 
means  in  his  constancy  of  action.  His  light  is  alive 
in  the  very  hearts  that  neglect  or  deny  him  ;  and  in 
those  that  most  own  him  is  latent  a  thousand  times 
for  once  that  it  flashes  on  their  conscious  eye.  But 
there  are  moments  when  the  heauty  of  the  universe 
looks  in  at  us  with  a  meaning  quite  divine ;  or  the 
crises  of  history  shake  us  as  the  visible  drama  of 
Providence  ;  or  the  eye  of  appealing  misery  burns  into 
the  place  of  pity  in  our  souls  and  we  know  it  to  be  his 
sympathy  as  well  as  ours  ,*  or  a  new  insight  of  duty 
opens  a  path  which  he  alone  could  show.  In  these 
instances,  we  strain  no  ingenuity  to  discover  him  ;  it  is 
he  who  comes  to  us  and  finds  us ;  his  presence  rises 
of  itself,  and  the  revelation  is  spontaneous.  Our  sole 
concern  is  to  accept  it,  to  revere  it,  to  follow  it,  to  live 
by  it. 

Thus  the  true  attitude  of  the  devout  mind  always 
involves  a  certain  quietism  and  self-relinquishment. 
Instead  of  pressing  curiously  forward,  it  sinks  in  medi- 
tation back,  rests  upon  the  moment  as  divine,  and  feels 
the  very  pavement  beneath  its  feet  as  holy.  It  has 
neither  any  distance  to  go,  nor  any  time  to  wait,  in 
order  to  elose  in  with  the  Spirit  of  God ;  only  to  own 
and  trust  him  now  and  here, — to  pass  into  his  hand 
with  simple  faith,  a  disarmed  and  unreluctant  captive 
to  his  will.  To  look  at  the  Christian  conflict  from  with- 
out, you  might  suppose  that  it  was.  achieved  by  lashing 


I2O  God  Revealed  unto  Babes. 

the  soul  to  intense  volition,  by  an  ever-hasting  never- 
resting  agility,  by  breathless  eagerness  to  mount  the 
height.  An  energy  so  great  seems  to  strain  all  the 
powers  of  Resolve :  a  victory  so  arduous  over  ease  and 
passion  has  in  it  a  royal  air  of  mastery  :  an  aspiration 
so  lofty  appears  to  set  the  eye  on  what  is  distant  and 
toil  for  it  with  determined  vow.  Yet,  if  you  will  look 
within,  you  will  find  quite  another  mood  of  mind 
from  this ;  not  rigid  purpose,  but  pliant  affection  ;  not 
kingly  command,  but  docile  submission ;  not  even  any 
passion  for  far-off  excellence,  but  a  willing  heart  for  the 
duty  that  is  near.  The  spirit  of  highest  heroism  before 
men  stands  as  a  little  child  before  the  face  of  God. 
When  the  Christian  lady,  endowed  with  whatever  is 
choicest  in  the  gifts  of  nature  and  the  enrichments  of 
life,  exchanges  the  cultivated  home  for  the  noisome 
j  -f  ^^hospital,  pledges  the  highest  accomplishments  to  the 
Jfc*  lowliest  charities,  carries  gentle  graces  and  clear  faculty 
into  the  presence  and  service  of  wounded  and  fevered 
exiles,  and  lives  only  to  see  and  do  what  few  men,  in 
•  their  strength  and  hardihood,  would  dare  approach :  we 
ask  ourselves  with  reverent  wonder,  how  a  resolution  so 
magnanimous  could  declare  itself  at  all,  and  how  sacri- 
fice so  costly  can  bear  the  constant  drain.  Perhaps  the 
struggle  we  imagine  never  has  been  there.  Perhaps 
the  difficulty,  the  reluctance,  the  stern  mustering  of 
conquering  force,  are  all  a  dream.  Perhaps  there  has 
only  been  a  simple  yielding  up  of  self  to  the  asking 


God  Revealed  unto  Babes.  121 

look  of  God,  a  dropping  of  all  resistance,  an  acquies- 
cence in  the  moulding  touch  and  pressure  of  the  divine 
will.  The  originality  and  greatness  of  such  minds  arise 
not  from  prasternatural  effort,  but  from  unreserved  sur- 
render: they  do  not  determine  whither  they  will  go, 
but  only  say,  '  Yes,'  whithersoever  they  are  led :  they 
do  not  fret  to  find  the  way  or  complain  because  they 
cannot  trace  it  far,  but,  hand  in  hand  with  an  everlasting 
Guide,  set  a  foot  of  firm  content  on  the  next  ground 
that  he  may  show.  Hence  the  quietude  and  evenness 
of  all  their  ways, — a  certain  gentle  and  solitary  air  that 
seems  too  mild  to  give  out  so  much  power, — a  half- 
mystic  reserve  whence  strangely  issues  a  rare  organizing 
and  administrative  faculty.  For  it  is  the  g^eat  marvel 
of  the  Christian  character,  that  the  completest  self- 
sacrifice  gives  the  completest  self-possession ;  that  only 
the  captive  soul,  which  has  flung  her  rights  away,  has 
all  her  powers  free ;  and  that  simply  to  serve  under  the 
instant  orders  of  the  living  God,  is  the  highest  qualifi- 
cation for  command.  This  is  the  meaning  of  that  great 
saying  of  Cromwell's,  "  One  never  mounts  so  high  as 
when  one  knows  not  ivliither  one  is  going  "  :  a  saying 
which  "  the  wise  and  prudent "  scorned  as  a  confession 
of  blindness,  but  which  reveals  to  simpler  minds  the 
deepest  truth. 

There  are,  in  fact,  two  types  of  human  greatness, — 
the  Pagan  and  the  Christian, — the  moral  and  the  reli- 
gious,— the  secular  and  the  divine.  The  former  has  its 


122  God  Revealed  unto  Babes. 

root  and  essence  in  trying  hard ;  the  latter,  in  trusting 
gently:  the  one  depends  on  voluntary  energy;  tho 
other  on  relinquishment  of  personal  will  to  cast  every 
burden  upon  God.  The  one  chooses  its  own  ends, 
elaborates  the  means,  attempts  to  see  several  moves 
before  it,  and  secures  the  unity  of  its  course  and  cha- 
racter by  plan  and  vigilance  ;  the  other,  possessed  by  a 
God-given  end,  becomes  its  organ  and  its  implement, 
and  simply  lets  it  use,  from  day  to  day,  the  entire  powers 
of  the  soul.  On  a  nearer  view,  there  is  here,  after  all, 
not  so  much  an  abnegation  of  will,  as  a  return  to  its 
primitive  simplicity.  The  child,  impelled  towards  some 
object  of  his  wish, — e.g.  to  run  after  a  ball,  to  imitate 
a  phrase,  to  make  a  drawing  of  a  horse,  is  wholly  pre- 
occupied with  his  conception,  and  never  measures  his 
resources  against  it,  or  thinks  of  the  chain  of  move- 
ments that  must  lead  from  the  idea  to  the  accomplish- 
ment. He  lets  the  end  find  its  own  means ;  and  flings 
himself  upon  the  unconscious  tentatives  that  carry  him 
to  his  goal  without  telling  him  his  way.  In  such  in- 
stinctive execution  of  his  remote  aim  there  is  ever  the 
grace  and  freedom  of  an  inspiration.  But  when,  in 
order  to  frame  it  into  an  expertness,  you  draw  back  his 
thought  and  fix  it  upon  the  process,  and  make  him 
count  and  register  the  steps,  the  flow  of  power  will  fail 
him ;  the  feet  will  totter,  the  voice  will  hesitate,  the 
finger  stiffen  ;  and  the  spontaneous  faculty,  lost  by  your 
analysis  of  Nature,  has  to  be  doubtfully  regained  by 


God  Revealed  unto  Babes.  123 

combinations  of  Art.  Similarly,  in  the  higher  intuitions, 
it  is  the  unconditional  surrender  to  an  authoritative  end, 
with  implicit  trust  in  its  command  of  means,  that  arms 
them  with  a  force  serene  and  irresistible.  Free  from 
every  care,  entangled  in  no  web  of  calculation,  the 
thoughts  gain  an  unanxious  elasticity,  and  the  life 
derives  unity  from  the  singleness  of  spontaneous  feeling 
that  pervades  it  all.  Both  these  heroisms  may  be  high 
and  noble  :  both  may  be  untainted  by  mean  passions 
and  unworthy  aims  :  both  have  left  their  trace  of  glory 
on  human  history.  But  the  strenuous  self-reliance 
must  yield  the  palm  to  the  quietude  of  self-sacrifice 
and  the  victory  of  faith.  However  intense  the  stimulus 
which  ambition  or  even  conscience  may  give  to  the  in- 
tellect and  will,  it  is  not  to  be  compared  with  the  might 
assumed  by  the  faculties  of  their  own  accord,  when 
released  from  fear  and  care,  and  flung  into  the  Almighty 
hand  to  be  wielded  at  his  will.  There  is  no  instrument 
so  tremendous  in  this  world  as  a  human  soul  thus 
committed  to  what  is  diviner  than  itself :  it  is  as  the 
two-edged  sword  of  the  Spirit  with  the  scabbard  thrown 
away;  and  wherever  difficulties  are  to  be  cleft,  and 
fiends  of  evil  to  be  cut  down,  there  it  will  be  found, 
flashing  on  the  Providential  field.  Be  it  the  saintly 
woman,  or  be  it  the  God-fearing  Puritan,  "  None  mount 
so  high  as  those  who  know  not  whither  they  go."- 

It  is  not  then  so  difficult  to  understand  how  the  most 
wonderful  Christian  activity  proceeds  from  the  quietest 

'  • 


124  God  Revealed  unto  Babes. 

and  most  passive  surrender.  Equally  true  is  it,  that 
the  more  you  studiously  attend  to  divine  and  infinite 
things,  instead  of  letting  them  attend  to  you,  the  less 
are  you  likely  to  learn  of  them.  Why  pry  about  to  find 
the  universal  Light  ?  why  wander  through  the  dark  to 
meet  the  Night  ?  The  Light  is  here  and  bathes  ytfu 
all  the  while :  the  Night  is  around,  and  hides  you  in 
its  embrace.  Drink-in  the  beauty  of  the  hour:  lie 
open  to  its  deepest  hints  and  holiest  meaning  :  be  still, 
and  ask  for  purity  of  heart ;  and  the  blank  will  fill,  the 
cloud  will  glow,  with  One  who  is  often  found  of  them 
that  seek  him  not.  Those  who  in  this  matter  prate 
most  about  "  progress  "  are  just  the  people  to  make  the 
smallest  way ;  and  none  seem  to  win  less  knowledge  of 
sacred  things  than  those  who  make  a  watchword  of 
"  truth  "  and  a  parade  of  "  free  inquiry."  This  posture 
and  direction  of  the  mind  is  false  except  for  finite  ancl 
evanescent  things,  and  must  be  dropped  to  begin  the 
life  of  faith.  The  Infinite  is  not  hid  in  a  corner ;  or 
locked  among  the  treasures  of  the  Vatican ;  or  lingering 
among  the  antiquities  of  the  first  century ;  or  waiting 
behind  some  future  and  undevised  experiment, — that 
we  have  any  key  to  turn,  any  bar  to  remove,  any  choicest 
instruments  to  invent  ere  he  becomes  accessible.  Were 
it  so,  were  he  at  the  end  of  some  hard  problem,  the 
mere  prize  of  logical  skill,  what  hope  would  there  be 
for  the  multitude  of  toiling  men  ?  We  sometimes  hear 
it  said,  by  well-read  people ;  "If  we,  with  all  our  ad- 


God  Revealed  unto  Babes.  125 


vantages  of  mental  training,  find  it  so  difficult  to  banish 
doubt  and  realise  the  holy  truths  which  we  profess  ;  if  £ 
we  are  often  obliged  to  have  recourse  to  subtle  reason- 
ings arid  close  reflection  in  order  to  clear  up  a  perplexity 
and  shake  off  a  misgiving,  how  can  we  expect  from  the 
untaught  poor  anything  but  inapprehension  and  un- 
belief?" Were  religious  faith  the  creation  of  dialectic 
or  the  fruit  of  erudition,  this  despondency  would  be 
just.  But  its  source  and  place  are  far  different.  It  is 
rather  the  first  root  of  life  than  the  last  blossom  of 
thought  ;  and  is  secured  upon  the  native  love  and  un- 
sophisticated conscience  which  may  lie  torpid  through 
some  wintry  seasons  of  civilization,  but  can  never  die 
within  the  soil  of  our  humanity.  To  commune  with 
God,  there  is  need  of  no  subtle  thought,  no  foreign 
tongue,  no  newest  philosophy  :  "  the  pure  in  heart  shall 
see  "  him  ;  and  Fox  and  Bunyan  can  more  truly  make 
him  known,  than  "  Masters  of  Sentences  "  and  "  Angelic 
Doctors."  It  is  not  till  we  fall  from  the  platform  of 
our  natural  trusts,  that  the  wheels  and  pulleys  of  argu- 
ment are  plied  to  lift  us  back  again  ;  and  the  artifices 
of  reason  would  never  be  needed  but  to  meet  and 
balance  the  artifices  of  doubt.  The  dark  spirits  which 
the  restless  intellect  evokes,  a  brighter  intellect  alone 
is  able  to  disperse  :  but  when  it  has  cast  them  out,  it 
has  but  chastened  its  own  work,  and  reinstated  us  in 
natural  health.  Religion  is  born  ere  thought  begins  : 
it  is  re  -born,  when  thought  is  consummated  and  enters 


126  God  Revealed  unto  Babes. 

into  its  glory.  But  meanwhile,  as  the  familiar  measures 
and  methods  of  intelligence  are  given  for  the  finite  order 
of  things,  it  is  no  wonder  that  they  embarrass  the 
apprehension  of  the  Infinite,  and  increase  the  difficulty 
rather  than  the  facility  of  faith.  And  so  long  as  this 
lower  mind  takes  no  counsel  with  the  higher  and 
spiritual  nature,  and  does  not  widen  the  horizon  of  its 
view,  it  will  be  blind  to  what  the  other  sees ;  and  our 
mental  advance  will  be  marked  by  the  alternation  of  an 
ever-creeping  shadow  on  divine  things  scattered  by  an 
ever-answering  light.  In  order  to  emerge  from  this 
struggle  of  action  and  reaction,  we  need,  not  increase 
of  acuteness,  so  much  as  return  to  simplicity.  The 
supreme  prerogative  of  cultivated  Reason  will  then  be 
to  reopen  the  native  pieties  of  early  love  and  trust ;  and 
the  truly  wise  will  see  around  them,  in  richer  hues  and 
sublimer  proportions,  the  heaven  that  lay  around  the 
child.  While  the  curious  intellect  tries  this  and  tries 
that,  with  an  ever-shifting  call  of  "  Lo !  here,"  and 
"Lo  !  there,"  to  the  tender  conscience  and  the  unspoiled 
mind  the  kingdom  of  God  has  already  come. 


PSALM  Iv.  19. 
"Because  they  have  no  changes,  therefore  they  fear  not  God." 

To  one  who  tries  everything  by  the  standard  of  enjoy- 
ment, there  arises  a  curious  contradiction  between  the 
inner  nature  and  the  outer  lot  of  men.  We  are  thrown 
upon  an  existence  where  nothing  is  permanent,  nothing 
asleep.  We  bring  into  it  a  soul  that  sighs  for  repose, 
that  struggles  with  the  restless  tide,  and  ever  hopes  to 
drift  into  the  still  waters,  and  lie  within  the  shelter  of 
the  hills.  Our  life  is  planted  on  the  surface  of  a 
whirling  sphere.  Our  prayer  is  to  find  its  tranquil 
centre  and  revolve  no  more.  Not  that  we  are  passive 
all  the  while,  and  borne  along  by  powers  wholly  foreign 
to  ourselves.  Strange  to  say,  we  are  sharers  in  the 
very  stir  and  turmoil  of  which  we  complain.  We 
create  the  race  which  we  say  outstrips  us  and  leaves 
us  faint.  We  fling  our  voice  into  the  hum  of  human 


128  The  Messengers  of  Change. 

history ;  yet  stop  our  ears,  lest  it  should  drive  us  mad. 
It  is  not  the  mere  lapsing  seasons  of  the  heavens  and 
the  earth,  not  the  passage  of  our  physical  life  alone,  by 
•which  our  remonstrance  is  called  forth :  but,  not  less, 
the  vicissitudes  of  society,  the  shifting  attitudes  of 
thought  and  feeling,  the  evanescence-  of  habits,  institu- 
tions, and  beliefs ;  processes,  of  which  our  own  agency 
is  the  producing  cause,  and  in  pleading  against  which 
we  are  plaintiffs  against  our  own  will.  Thus,  we  are  at 
variance  with  ourselves,  as  much  as  with  our  God ;  and 
are  like  wayward  children,  breaking  their  toys  and  then 
weeping  at  the  wreck  which  their  own  passion  has  made. 
The  yearning  for  rest  is  no  doubt  deeper  and  stronger 
with  the  old  than  with  the  young,  with  the  conservative 
than  with  the  reforming  spirit.  But  it  exists  in  all. 
The  very  desire  for  progress  is  for  the  sake  of  some 
fixed  goal :  the  most  burning  aspiration  hopes  to  sit 
and  look  forth  at  last  from  the  cool  and  freshening 
height.  The  intensest  action  sustains  itself  on  the 
thought  that  it  may  soon  subside :  it  loves  not  the 
burden  it  is  impelled  to  bear,  but  trusts  ere  long  to 
lay  it  down.  When  the  poet  or  the  moralist  touches 
on  the  transiency  of  all  earthly  things,  and  the  per- 
petual succession  of  fresh  relations,  it  is  always  with 
some  sadness  in  the  strain  :  as  if  he  went  forth  to  take 
a  tender  farewell  of  the  old,  rather  than  to  swell  the 
triumph  of  the  new.  And  even  the  philosophy  which 
has  brought  itself  to  think  that  the  universe  is  but  an 


The  Messengers  of  Change.  129 

eddy  of  eternal  change,  an  ocean  composed,  all  through 
its  depths,  of  crossing  currents  of  phenomena,  has 
usually  taught  the  doctrine  either  with  a  sorrow  in  the 
voice,  or  in  the  metal  tone  of  heartless  arrogance.  The 
decree  of  vicissitude  manifestly  presses  heavily  upon 
the  soul :  and  whether  it  be  the  outward  condition  of 
established  comfort  that  crumbles  beneath  the  feet ;  or 
the  beliefs  of  earlier  days  that  change  like  the  morning 
clouds  before  the  kindling  light ;  or  the  affections  that 
have  given  a  quiet  sanctity  to  life,  and  are  now  called 
to  drop  their  objects  one  by  one  at  the  word  of  Death  ; 
the  cry  of  the  heart  is  still  the  same,  "  0  that  it 
were  with  me  now,  as  it  was  in  the  times  never  to 
return !  " 

This  regretful  glance  at  the  fading  colours  of  the 
past,  this  longing  to  find  rest  from  the  ceaseless  flow 
of  change,  has  two  different  meanings  and  tendencies : 
one  false  and  evil ;  the  other  true  and  good.  Its 
impulse  is  false,  when  it  leads  us  to  the  mere  negative 
resource  of  ease  and  exemption,  instead  of  the  positive 
repose  in  God ;  when  we  only  cry  to  be  let  alone,  that 
our  sleep  be  not  disturbed  too  soon ;  when  we  simply 
shrink  from  the  touch  of  new  duties  and  new  sorrows  ; 
when  we  are  angry  at  the  noble  passion  that  urges  us 
to  toil  and  danger,  and  repent  of  the  love  that  brings 
us  grief.  Its  impulse  is  true,  when  it  makes  us,  in  our 
quest  of  peace,  go  out  beyond  vicissitude,  instead  of 
weaving  a  nest  within  it ;  when  it  refers  us  to  a  centre 

K 


130  The  Messengers  of  Change. 

of  stability,  a  spirit  of  Almighty  constancy,  a  presence 
of  pure  and  infinite  affection,  amid  and  behind  the 
fluctuations  of  created  things ;  when,  instead  of  return- 
ing to  our  ark  at  the  first  spray  of  the  cold  flood,  we 
do  but  rise  upon  the  wing  to  look  through  the  upper 
air,  and  then  take  our  resolute  track  to  the  fixed  and 
illumined  hills.  The  soul  is  faithless  which,  when  it 
is  stung  by  severities  and  bowed  by  afflictions,  tries  to 
choke  its  sympathies  and  bring  a  frost  upon  its  mellow 
seasons.  It  is  not  by  reducing  life  to  less,  but  by 
expanding  it  to  more ;  not  by  muffling  its  stern  tones, 
but  by  ringing  its  sweetness  clearly  out,  that  a  serene 
harmony  can  be  obtained.  When  duty  is  severe,  we 
must  be  more  reverently  dutiful ;  if  love  brings  sorrow, 
we  must  love  more  and  better  ;  when  thought  chills  us 
with  doubt  and  fear,  we  must  think  again  with  fuller 
soul  and  deeper  trust. 

The  changeful  lot  which  our  lower  instinct  deprecates 
is,  in  truih,  the  very  discipline  by  which  God  would 
draw  us  to  himself.  Repugnant  to  our  animal  and 
sentient  nature,  it  kindles  the  diviner  element  to  life. 
There  is  none  but  God  himself  that  can  abide  for  ever 
holy,  for  ever  perfect,  for  ever  wakeful,  without  any 
experience  of  alternation.  As  for  us,  if  we  have  no 
changes,  we  fear  him  not.  Our  faculties  of  intellect 
and  feeling,  our  sense  of  beauty  and  of  right,  the 
opening  out  of  character  and  affection,  are  made  de- 
pendent on  the  stimulus  of  incessant  change.  The 


The  Messengers  of  Change.  131 

passiveness  of  the  infant's  existence,  is  overcome  by  a 
thousand  soliciting  impressions ;  the  light  that  fasci- 
nates the  eye  ;  the  touch  that  puts  a  spring  into  the 
limbs ;  the  ever-varying  challenge  of  the  mother's 
looks,  forcing  the  tender  cheek  into  a  smile.  The 
great  apparatus  of  external  nature,  which  would  teach 
us  nothing  if  it  and  we  were  fixed,  glides  with  transi- 
tory images  before  the  sight,  and,  ere  we  can  sleep 
before  one  scene,  presents  us  with  another.  This  is 
indeed  the  very  condition  of  all  apprehension  and  in- 
telligence. Dipped  ever  in  the  same  scene,  plunged 
in  one  colour,  filled  with  one  monotone,  no  perception 
would  be  startled  into  birth :  the  glance  of  attention 
sleeps,  till  the  moment  of  transition ;  it  leaps  forth  at 
the  edges  of  light  and  darkness,  of  sound  and  silence, 
and  in  crossing  the  line  first  learns  the  realm  on  either 
side.  So  long  as  life  is  young,  a  perpetual  stream  of 
wonder  pours  on  the  mind  and  bathes  it  with  exhaust- 
less  admirations :  even  were  no  lines  of  unexpected 
order,  no  new  regions  of  knowledge  opened,  the  .rapid 
ripening  of  the  faculties  themselves  would  alter  the 
apparent  lights  on  every  scene,  and  dissolve  the  out- 
lines of  each  prior  experience.  And  in  this  training 
of  constant  change  there  is  a  marvellous  tendency  to 
drive  us  upon  faith  in  the  Unchangeable.  Finite 
things  can  be  discerned  only  against  the  background 
of  the  Infinite.  The  visible  body  that  glides  before  the 
eye  is  as  an  island  in  the  Space  that  has  no  bounding 

K  2 


132  The  Messengers  of  Change. 

shore.  The  passing  event  that  marks  the  moment  is 
but  a  point  of  contact  where  the  curve  of  our  being 
meets  the  tangent  of  Eternity.  No  appearance  emerges 
and  arrests  our  thought,  without  raising  questions  of 
Causation,  and  speaking  to  us  as  from  a  hidden  Mind 
that  meditates  in  beauty  and  speaks  in  law.  To  the 
pure  and  unspoiled  heart,  all  phenomena  that  present 
no  deformity,  and  all  experience  clear  of  sin,  open  a 
way  for  the  consciousness  of  God :  gleams  of  him  will 
frequently  break  through;  and  a  certain  tacit  sense 
of  his  reality  and  nearness  will  linger  around  even 
common  hours  and  daily  tasks.  Where  the  first 
lessons  of  life,  the  first  stirrings  of  the  soul,  are 
hindered  by  no  hardening  and  ungenial  culture,  its 
features  of  earthly  gladsomeness  will  have  a  certain 
modest  setting  of  heavenly  reverence. 

But  the  cycle  of  young  experience  soon  completes 
itself.  At  each  return  its  repetitions  become  more  and 
more  familiar.  Change  itself  becomes  customary,  and 
visits  the  mind  with  monotony  rather  than  variety. 
The  spring  seems  to  burst  with  a  fainter  verdure,  and 
the  winter  hearth  to  burn  with  a  less  vivid  glow.  The 
morning-breeze  of  young  enthusiasm,  so  fragrant  of 
the  night,  so  fresh  from  heaven,  grows  drowsy  with 
the  steady  heat,  and  sinks  to  rest :  and  the  mental 
and  moral  life  which  had  been  nursed  in  vicissitude 
threatens  to  perish  under  the  opiate  of  usage.  Not 
that  Providence  abandons  us  in  our  maturity,  or  omits 


The  Messengers  of  Change.  133 

to  ply  us  with  awakening  appeals.  No  sooner  has  life 
ceased  to  he  a  constant  flow  of  novelty,  than  it  enters 
on  a  series  of  grand  crises,  which  intersect  its  even 
course  :  its  current  orhit  has  become  as  a  beaten  track : 
but  there  are  nodes  it  cannot  pass  without  a  spark 
and  thrill.  When  life-long  ties  are  contracted,  and  the 
green  path  is  entered  at  one  end  at  whose  other  the 
death-shadow  waits  in  ambush  ;  when  first  the  home 
of  marriage  is  set  in  order ;  when  the  child  is  born ; 
when  the  parent  dies  ;  when  the  friend  deserts,  or  the 
business  fails,  or  the  sickness  prostrates  ;  the  Angel  of 
Change  looks  in  again  through  her  veil  of  light,  or 
her  curtain  of  shadows,  and  reminds  us  of  Him  who 
abideth  in  the  midst  for  ever.  All  these  are  epochs  of 
natural  devotion ;  and  only  the  most  insensible  heart 
can  pass  them  with  the  neutral  heedlessness  of  instinct, 
and  without  any  enriching  hue  of  awe-ful  thought. 
The  incidents  of  the  great  mortal  drama  are  so  pre- 
pared as  never  to  permit  the  interest  to  flag ;  and  even 
in  its  quietest  development,  where  the  plot  seems  most 
evenly  to  act  itself  out,  we  cannot  be  long  without  some 
scene  whose  pathos  touches  us,  or  whose  misery  appals. 
These  times,  moreover,  are  irregularly  scattered  on  our 
way,  that  they  may  the  better  surprise  our  insensibility, 
and  that  we  may  not  kill  them  by  anticipation  ere  they 
come.  They  are  not  like  the  steadily  recurring  hours 
that  announce  the  stated  duty  and  find  us  mechanically 
prepared.  With  whatever  wonder  we  watch  the  dial- 


134  The  Messengers  of  Change. 

plate  of  life,  we  cannot  find  them  there.  The  deeper 
crises  are  marked  in  invisible  characters  there,  legible 
only  to  the  Omniscient  eye  ;  and  as  the  index  traverses, 
we  know  not  what  birth,  what  death,  what  sudden  hope, 
what  blighted  joy,  lies  just  upon  its  touch.  When  these 
hours  strike,  neither  matin  nor  vesper  has  such  a  holy 
sound :  it  is  God  himself  that  tolls  us  in  to  prayer, 
and  calls  us  to  listen  to  his  great  Sermon  on  the 
Mount ;  and  whether  we  are  in  the  field  or  on  the  sea, 
we  must  throw  down  the  common  implements  of  our 
work,  and  go  and  stand  before  his  face.  As  one  crisis 
after  another  is  brought  upon  our  lot,  it  gives  us  the 
means  of  moral  admeasurement  and  deeper  self-know- 
ledge :  it  reads  off  the  reckoning  of  our  spirits,  and 
tells  us  whether  we  more  deeply  live,  or  more  begin 
to  die.  Each  newest  sorrow  revives  the  thought  of 
those  before,  and  spreads  out  the  past  in  tender 
colours  before  the  eye  :  the  pictures  of  other  years,  the 
scenes  once  pressed  by  our  more  elastic  feet,  the  dear 
forms  that  were  with  us  there,  and  held  us  by  the  hand, 
stand  out  in  the  clear  and  silent  light :  and  their  very 
looks  may  tell  us  whether  any  grosser  film  has  gathered 
on  our  soul ;  whether  we  can  meet  their  calm  and  holy 
face ;  whether,  as  we  are  further  from  them  in  one 
direction,  we  are  nearer  to  them  in  another ;  and 
whether  the  same  atmosphere  of  God  seems  to  enfold 
us  both  and  make  us  one  with  them  and  him.  The 
emergencies  that  reveal  things  to  our  sight  are  a  disci- 


The  Messengers  of  Change.  135 

pline  which,  however  grievous,  we  can  ill  spare  ;  and, 
to  those  that  give  them  worthy  welcome,  they  leave  a 
trust  nobler  than  security,  and  a  wisdom  better  than 
any  joy.  The  men  who  most  escape  them,  who  most 
completely  realise  the  false  elysium  of  an  easy  life ; 
whose  heritage  saves  them  the  rough  battle  with 
difficulty,  to  win  an  honourable  footing  in  the  world; 
whose  health  is  never  shaken  by  disease,  and  whose 
home  is  invaded  by  no  anxiety ;  are  rarely  those  who 
most  penetrate  to  the  moral  significance  of  life,  and 
are  alive  with  the  quickest  affection  and  the  promptest 
alacrity  of  conscience.  Too  often  a  sluggish  cloud 
gathers  on  their  mind  and  hides  from  them  the  finest 
expression,  the  divinest  look,  upon  the  features  of 
nature  and  humanity.  All  things  fall  tamely  to  their 
lot  as  matters  of  course  :  the  prizes  for  which  others 
spend  all  their  manly  strength,  the  decent  and  orna- 
mental comfort,  the  provision  for  the  sinking  parent, 
the  education  for  the  rising  child,  the  store  of  books, 
the  fund  for  charity,  the  time  for  kindly  deeds,  the 
place  of  influence  in  society ;  all  are  theirs  without  a 
thought,  and,  grown  flat  with  usage,  have  none  of  the 
rich  flavour  of  hope  and  toil.  Great  is  the  danger  that, 
because  they  have  no  changes,  they  may  cease  to  fear 
or  love.  It  is  only  by  strong  and  noble  effort  to  shake 
off  the  slothful  weeds  as  they  creep  over  the  surface  of 
such  a  life,  and  keep  the  margin  clear  by  the  running 
waters  of  pure  affection,  that  they  can  retain  the  native 


136  The  Messengers  of  Change. 

clearness  of  the  soul,  and  continue  to  reflect  the  gaze 
of  Heaven.  What  the  natural  history  of  the  heart, 
the  quickening  necessity,  the  subduing  sorrow,  accom- 
plish for  others,  is  left  in  their  case  to  the  strenuous 
vow  of  their  own  will.  It  is  one  of  the  great  compen- 
sations which  balance,  more  equally  than  men  suppose, 
the  good  and  ill  of  human  existence,  that  where  there 
is  more  affliction  there  is  often  more  affection  too :  if 
the  burden  is  heavier  to  be  borne,  the  soul  is  more 
elastic  to  bear  it ;  and  by  many  a  sorrowing  creature, 
flushed  with  the  inspiration  of  love,  duties  are  thrown 
profusely  and  spontaneously  off,  which  the  painful 
struggles  of  unawakened  ease  could  scarcely  lift. 

So  completely  is  it  the  Providential  plan  to  secure  to 
us  the  discipline  of  change,  that,  when  we  fall  asleep 
on  the  crust  of  usage,  a  fire  is  immediately  kindled 
beneath  us,  and  we  sleep  on  a  volcano.  Our  very 
inertia  operates  as  an  instrument  to  prepare  for  us  new 
crises  that  shall  force  us  to  spring  to  our  feet  once 
more.  Whatever  be  our  appointed  work,  the  first 
moment  of  its  neglect  is  the  first  moment  of  its  decay ; 
and  where  we  cease  to  grow  our  corn,  the  poison  plants 
will  cover  all  the  ground.  God  has  made  nothing  in 
this  world  to  keep — nothing,  at  least,  that  has  a  beauty, 
and  that  bears  a  fruit ;  death  only  and  negation,  de- 
formity and  barrenness,  will  flourish  when  let  alone. 
The  individual  mind,  abandoned  to  negligence,  watched 
by  no  eye  of  conscience,  bathed  in  no  presence  of  God, 


137 

exercised  in  no  athletics  of  duty,  loosens  all  its  healthy 
structure,  and  sinks  into  moral  decline ;  little,  perhaps, 
suspecting  its  own  degeneracy,  till  surprised  into  some 
awful  degradation,  and  wakening  into  shame.  No  in- 
stitution, no  state,  no  church,  will  go  on  of  itself  and 
hold  its  footing  in  the  nature  of  things,  while  its 
guardians  and  trustees  are  dozing  on  their  watch. 
There  is  ever  a  little  speck  of  disease,  a  canker  of  evil 
and  falsehood,  secreted  in  the  substance  of  terrestrial 
things,  which  is  sure  to  spread,  if  you  omit  to  wipe  the 
dust  from  their  surface,  and  wash  them  with  the  waters 
of  purification.  If  you  persist  awhile  in  your  unfaith- 
fulness, you  will  be  startled  at  length  by  the  spasm  of 
a  sudden  agony ;  and  it  will  be  well,  if  by  repentant 
efforts  at  renewal  and  the  use  of  painful  remedies,  a 
disastrous  dissolution  is  staved  off.  In  nations,  as  in 
persons,  too  great  a  calm,  too  mild  an  indifference,  too 
peaceful  an  apathy,  is  ever  a  dark  and  boding  sign,  the 
lull  that  comes  before  the  storm,  the  dead  silence  ere 
the  thunder  breaks.  If  we  stir  the  atmosphere  and 
fling  it  upwards  from  no  soil  burning  with  noble 
passions ;  if  every  zone  of  our  world  reduces  itself  to 
temperate  and  timid  heats ;  if  no  circulating  breath  of 
pure  enthusiasm  passes  from  land  to  land,  bearing  on 
it  the  cry  of  sympathy  with  the  down-trodden,  and  of 
defiance  to  the  oppressor  ;  God  will  clear  the  air  for  us 
from  above,  and  fling  across  our  fields  and  cities  the 
whirlwind  of  revolution.  Thus  it  is  that  "  He  who 


138  The  Messengers  of  Change. 

abideth  for  ever  will  afflict  us,"  if,  "  because  we  have 
no  changes,"  we  cease  to  stand  in  awe  of  him.  There 
is  no  peace  but  in  waking  to  all  his  seasons,  and 
moving  freely  with  the  windings  of  his  Will;  quick 
to  seize  each  fresh  surprise  of  duty ;  alert  before  day- 
break to  strike  our  tent  of  ease ;  patient  to  endure  the 
crown  of  thorns  which  must  press  upon  the  brow  of 
every  son  of  God. 

If,  then,  the  very  law  of  life  is  a  law  of  change  ;  if 
every  blossom  of  beauty  has  its  root  in  fallen  leaves ; 
if  love,  and  thought,  and  hope  would  faint  beneath  too 
constant  light,  and  need  for  their  freshening  the  dark- 
ness and  the  dews ;  if  it  is  in  losing  the  transient  that 
we  gain  the  Eternal ;  then  let  us  shrink  no  more  from 
sorrow,  and  sigh  no  more  for  rest ;  but  have  a  genial 
welcome  for  vicissitude,  and  make  quiet  friends  with 
loss  and  Death.  Through  storm  and  calm,  fresh  be 
our  courage,  and  quick  our  eye,  for  the  various  service 
that  may  await  us.  Nay,  when  God  himself  turns  us 
not  hither  and  thither,  when  he  sends  us  no  changes 
for  us  to  receive  and  consecrate,  be  it  ours  to  create 
them  for  ourselves,  by  flinging  ourselves  into  generous 
enterprises  and  worthy  sacrifice ;  by  the  stirrings  of 
sleepless  aspiration,  and  all  the  spontaneous  vicissitudes  . 
of  holy  and  progressive  souls;  keeping  always  the 
moral  spaces  round  us  pure  and  fresh  by  the  constant 
thought  of  truth  and  the  frequent  deed  of  love.  And 
then,  when,  for  us  too,  death  closes  the  great  series  of 


The  Messengers  of  Change.  139 

mortal  changes,  the  past  will  lie  behind  us  green  and 
sweet  as  Eden,  and  the  future  before  us  in  the  light  of 
eternal  peace.  Tranquil  and  fearless  we  shall  resign 
ourselves  to  God,  to  conduct  us  through  that  ancient 
and  invisible  way,  which  has  been  sanctified  by  the  feet 
of  all  the  faithful,  and  illumined  by  the  passage  of  the 
Man  of  griefs. 


XI. 

j&emt  Cmst. 


JOHN  iv.  32. 
"  I  hare  meat  to  eat  that  ye  know  not  of." 

THE  sense  of  dependence,  it  has  been  declared, 
constitutes  the  essence  of  religion.  At  all  events,  it 
is  an  essential  condition.  A  nature  perfectly  self- 
possessed  and  self-sufficing,  in  equilibrium  with  the 
world  without,  and  at  rest  from  the  balance  of  its 
powers  within,  would  be  so  rounded  off  and  complete 
in  itself  as  to  float  through  existence  unconscious  of 
the  "attractions,  untroubled  by  the  resistances,  which 
determine  its  path.  It  is  when  we  feel  the  jar  of 
actual  adjustments,  that  the  sphere  of  the  possible 
bursts  open  to  us  ;  when  we  are  borne  out  on  the  wing 
of  affections  which  find  nowhere  to  alight,  but  only 
floods  below  and  clouds  above,  that  we  set  our  heart 
on  the  rock  beneath  the  waters  and  the  light  beyond 
the  gloom.  And  there  are  such  provisions  for  this 
experience  in  the  whole  constitution  of  our  life,  that 


Secret  Trust.  141 

not  even  the  most  robust  and  limited  of  men  can 
escape  the  sense  of  instability.  There  are  times  when 
we  cannot  but  feel  the  world  too  strong  for  us  ; — the 
world  u'ith&ut ;  when  its  strain  of  duty  loads  us  with 
too  heavy  a  weight ;  or  the  stroke  of  its  laws  shatters 
our  reliances  and  leaves  us  wounded  and  alone  ;  or  the 
tyranny  of  its  opinion  baffles  in  us  what  is  wisest  and 
tortures  what  is  best ;  or  the  brevity  of  its  duration  for 
us  brings  us  at  the  same  hour  to  the  last  verge  of  its 
opportunity  and  the  full  discovery  of  its  scope.  Nor 
are  we  less  liable  to  be  overmastered  by  the  world' 
within  ;  when  the  will  is  struck  down  by  the  lightning 
of  passion,  or  moves  creaking  with  the  friction  of 
temper,  or  sinks  in  the  collapse  of  depression ;  and 
whether  we  are  taken  up  and  borne  along  upon  the 
storm,  or  checked  by  the  secret  threads  that  bind  us 
to  the  ground,  we  seem  to  be  disposed  of  against  vain 
remonstrance  of  our  own.  Even  if  the  winds  were 
calm  without,  the  floods  would  roll  within  ;  for  in  our 
unstable  soul  the  very  bottom  heaves  beneath  ;  so  that 
we  are  tossed  between  the  elements  and  ride  on  a 
surface  that  never  rests. 

What  provision  then  is  there  for  conquering  this 
uncertain  sea  ?  what  means  of  holding  an  even  way 
through  the  fluctuations  of  impulse  and  vicissitude  ? 
In  the  habits  of  human  life,  and  the  resources  of 
human  character,  there  are  helps  of  various  degree  to 
this  end.  To  steady  us  amid  the  dizzy  sweep  of 


142  Secret  Trust. 

change,  it  is  good  to  be  under  a  rule  of  outward 
necessity,  which  weights  down  our.  sudden  caprices  and 
goads  our  flagging  resolves,  and  compels  us  to  pace 
a  round  of  achievement  we  should  else  deem  it  too 
monotonous  to  take.  Be  it  only  the  drill  of  an  army, 
the  discipline  of  a  frigate,  the  punctual  bell  and 
inexorable  machinery  of  a  mill,  whatever  mingles  law 
and  measure  with  the  forces  of  the  will,  and  constrains 
them  to  work  in  rhythm  if  they  work  at  all,  is  a 
beneficent  corrector  of  irresolution  and  vehemence, 
and  builds  up  those  habits  of  outward  order,  in  which 
inward  right  most  loves  to  dwell.  It  is  still  better  to 
pass  under  the  sway  of  a  fixed  purpose  of  our  own, 
\vhjch  shall  be  worthy  of  our  conscience  and  adequately 
tax  our  powers  ;  to  make  it  the  master  of  our  industry, 
the  counsellor  of  our  doubts,  the  victor  of  our  tempta- 
tions. And  whether  it  be  to  write  a  history,  to  solve  a 
problem,  or  to  remedy  an  abuse,  whoever  has  clearly 
before  him  such  an  end  in  view,  sails  with  his  compass 
alight  through  the  wildest  night,  and,  bearing  onward, 
is  heedless  of  the  pelting  rain,  and  unbewildered  by 
the  gloom.  From  all  who  are  intent  upon  great  works, 
a  Luther,  a  Cromwell,  a  Clarkson  among  reformers,  a 
Gibbon,  a  Humboldt,  a  Grote  among  intellectual  men, 
the  distractions  which  weaken  life  naturally  fall  away ; 
and  even  its  griets  strike  upon  them  with  gentler 
touch ;  and  over  many  a  dead  lift  of  obstruction  which 
would  bring  less  concentrated  energies  to  pause  they 


Secret  Trust.  143 

are  carried  by  a  quiet  persistency.  But  neither  the 
service  of  an  involuntary  necessity,  nor  the  execution 
of  a  voluntary  purpose,  reaches  the  ultimate  sources  of 
unrest ;  and,  in  order  to  steady  us  from  the  centre 
outwards,  it  is  best  of  all  to  be  possessed  by  a  hidden 
faith,  which  keeps  its  tints  of  beauty  and  its  lines  of 
truth  behind  the  flying  shadows,  a  secret  image  of 
what  life  really  is  before  the  verifying  eye  of  God,  a 
preoccupation  with  its  rightful  perfectness  as  seen  in 
the  supreme  visions  of  the  heart.  Once  let  there  be 
this  felt  difference  between  the  seeming  and  the  reality 
of  things ;  let  them  carry  an  inward  idea  which  is 
moulding  them  even  while  they  mar  it,  and  which 
will  persevere  and  emerge  through  their  transient 
deformities;  let  the  phenomena  pass  in  front  of  this 
divine  light,  while  the  mind  sinks  deep  into  it,  and 
abides  there  with  perfect  trust ;  then,  having  the 
interpreting  key  to  changes  which  baffle  others,  it 
dwells  in  an  element  of  peace,  and  identifies  itself,  not 
with  the  discords  of  the  world  which  are  working  them- 
selves off,  but  with  the  harmonies  that  are  striving 
to  be.  To  look  upon  the  scene  of  things  as  thus 
pervaded  by  the  thought  of  a  just  and  holy  God,  and 
charged  to  work  it  out,  in  unconscious  servitude  or  con- 
scious partnership,  to  live  with  heart  and  hope  fixed 
upon  the  higher  ends  instead  of  imprisoned  in  the 
£0or  beginnings, — this  is  to  have  power  perfected  in 
weakness,  and  joy  kindled  amid  tears :  this,  as  we  toss 


144  Secret  Trust. 

upon  the  deep  and  are  covered  with  the  night,  is  better 
than  the  fragile  compass :  it  is  the  compass  lifted  to 
heaven,  and  turned  into  stars  that  are  never  clouded 
and  never  set. 

"  I  have  meat  to  eat  that  ye  know  not  of."  "What 
words  could  more-  pathetically  hint  at  the  spiritual 
source  of  strength  in  that  unique  career, — that  aliment 
of  the  holy,  true  and  good  which  Plato  says  is  the 
common  well-spring  for  the  thirst  of  all  minds,  divine 
and  human.  Thus  to  live  out  of  the  invisible  and 
higher,  and  cling  to  it  as  the  last  reality,  is  Religion  ; 
and  this  it  is  which  alone  takes  away  the  hardness  of 
duty  and  gives  a  sweetness  to  affection,  and  mingles 
a  sanctity  with  experience. 

1.  There  is  an  invisible  and  transcendent  element 
in  Duty,  which  at  once  defines  and  inspires  it ;  clears 
its  form  and  turns  it  from  a  human  reluctance  into 
a  divine  joy.  It  is  in  vain  that  we  look  around  and 
consult  the  outward  world,  and  take  up  now  with  this 
example,  now  with  that,  in  order  to  find  what  we  ought 
to  be  and  do.  So  long  as  Conscience  tries  to  "  live  by 
sight  and  not  by  faith,"  and  cannot  stay  at  home  with 
God,  but  must  go  forth  into  the  desert  or  the  city  at 
every  call  of  "Lo!  here,"  and  "Lo!  there,"  it  can 
only  pass  from  thraldom  to  thraldom  and  find  no  true 
Deliverer.  Neither  models  that  appeal  to  the  eye,  nor 
maxims  that  speak  to  the  ear,  can  ever,  without 
abatement,  send  us  to  the  divine  light  or  tell  us  the 


Secret  Trust.  145 

divine  thought.  Plant  me  where  you  will  upon  that 
which  is,  I  must  look  across  a  chasm  to  that  which 
oiiaJit  to  be.  The  kingdom  of  heaven  remains  within  ; 
and  only  hroken  gleams  from  it  are  reflected  from  the 
world  without.  Eight  and  wrong  are  nowhere  clearly 
set  in  the  sunshine,  or  painted  definitely  out  in  the 
opposite  characters  of  men ;  but  are  mixed  up  together, 
as  if  the  combinations  of  fact  took  no  notice  of  the 

distinctions  of  thought,  and  some  weakness  of  nature 

\ 

fell  short  of  the  design    of   God.      Where  have   you 

ever  found,  even  in  the  selectest  gallery  of  the  good, 
one  whom  you  could  make  your  absolute  rule  of  life  ? 
Do  you  fix,  for  instance,  on  the  pure  soul  which  sits 
behind  that  uplifted  face,  and,  the  more  it  retires 
within,  shines  the  more  through  the  transparent  eye  ? 
He  who  looks  at  you  with  that  sweet  pathetic  light  and 
whose  voice  makes  music  in  the  heart,  may  never  have 
known  a  passion  that  is  ignoble  or  a  vision  that  is 
unclean ;  but  see !  his  home  is  in  confusion,  his 
appointments  are  unkept,  his  wife  is  overworked,  and 
he  heeds  not  that  he  has  left  her  to  serve  alone ;  in 
dreaming  how  the  world  might  be  better  he  lets  it  drop 
into  the  worse.  Do  you  turn  then,  in  your  disappoint- 
ment, to  one  who  shall  be  "  safe  from  all  illusions  "  ; 
whose  clear  discernment  and  firm  will  keep  him  well 
adjusted  to  the  world  around  him ;  and  who  suffers 
under  no  disproportion  between  the  intellect  which 
apprehends  and  the  conscience  which  works  out  the 

L 


146  Secret  Trusf. 

practical  problems  of  life  ?  If  you  keep  close  to  him, 
his  calm  and  constant  mind  may  hold  you  punctual 
to  duty  and  secure  against  mistake.  But,  alas  !  if 
you  are  in  doubt  and  wayward  sorrow,  you  never  dare 
confess  to  him ;  if  you  go  astray  into  some  folly,  he 
will  only  upbraid  you;  if  the  wing  of  some  high 
passioii'  lifts  you  from  his  beaten  track,  and  struggles 
to  reach  the  blue  and  visionary  distance,  he  will  part 
from  you  with  contemptuous  adieu.  Sick  at  heart  with 
the  cold  repulse,  do  you  take  for  your  comrade  and 
your  guide  that  young  apostle  of  righteousness,  the 
enthusiast  of  self-denial,  who  flings  himself  as  an 
organ  of  divine  pity  on  the  sins  and  grievances  of  the 
world,  and  shames  them  from  a  presence  instinct  with 
faith  and  hope  and  charity  ?  It  is  well ;  while  you 
are  at  his  side,  conscience  can  never  sleep,  and  the 
will,  touched  by  the  love  of  God,  can  bend  with  a 
tender  grace  to  the  smallest  things.  But  he  will  hurry 
you  hither  and  thither,  faster  than  your  reason  and 
more  capriciously  than  your  conscience  can  go :  stable 
only  in  nobleness,  he  is  carried,  with  the  hectic  flush 
of  restless  impulse  from  one  compassion  to  another, 
and  misses  the  quiet  unity  which  alone  can  compress 
any  achievement  into  the  few  human  years.  Not  the 
beauty  only,  but  the  possibility  of  his  life  you  find 
to  be  exceptional ;  and  with  loving  sorrow  you  have  to 
leave  him  on  his  path  alone. 

And   if  in  even   the   higher   characters   of  men  no 


Secret  Trust.  147 

adequate  rule  of  life  is  to  be  found,  still  vainer  is  the 
trust  in  the  current  sentiments  and  recognised  standard 
of  society  around.  It  is  a  miscellaneous  multitude  of 
the  foolish  and  frivolous  as  well  as  of  the  wise  and  faith- 
ful, which  votes  into  existence  the  moral  opinion  of  a 
community ;  and  its  level  can  never  rise  above  half-tide, 
except  when  some  mighty  wind  of  genius  and  goodness 
sets  in  from  the  deep,  and  for  an  hour  builds  it  up  to 
fiood.  From  its  very  nature,  social  law  asks  no  more 
than  men  of  all  sorts  agree  to  demand  of  one  another ; 
and  lets  off  with  impunity  the  follies  it  is  prudent  to 
wink  at,  and  the  sins  it  is  not  convenient  to  forego ;  and 
if  this  is  to  be  our  measure  of  right, — to  uphold  us  where 
we  are, — low  indeed  must  be  our  moral  position,  and 
precarious  our  standing  even  there.  If  you  have  only 
your  little  share  in  the  public  conscience,  all  that 
dignifies  existence  is  at  the  mercy  of  the  veering  winds, 
and  all  that  consecrates  it  retires  behind  the  cloud  :  not 
the  goodness  only,  but  the  beauty  and  true  adornment 
of  life,  oscillate  into  senseless  distortions ;  and  you  will 
deck  yourself,  under  Cromwell,  in  the  winding-sheet  of 
Puritanism,  and  in  the  next  age  in  the  lascivious  robes 
of  the  Restoration,  and  will  helplessly  deliver  yourself 
in  our  time  to  those  outrages  on  taste  which  bespeak 
vacuity  or  shamelessness  of  character.  Unless  you 
have  some  selecting  principle  within,  the  native  affinity, 
the  incorruptible  reverence  of  a  pure  and  modest  nature, 
you  have  nothing  to  steady  you  under  the  swaying 

L  2 


148  Secret  Trust. 

movements  of  custom ;  nothing  to  protect  you  from  any 
favourite  folly ;  nothing  to  hinder  your  captivity  to  the 
false  admirations  that  for  ever  lie  in  wait  for  the  idle 
and  the  faithless  of  mankind.  It  is  by  looking  up 
beyond  the  actual,  not  by  looking  down  into  it,  by  seek- 
ing God  within,  not  consulting  men  without,  that  you 
will  truly  measure  the  divine  claims  upon  you,  and  find 
your  duty  clear  and  calm  and  sacred.  Commune  with 
him,  the  All-holy,  and  it  will  become  a  secret  under- 
standing between  his  spirit  and  your  own, — a  trust  from 
him,  answered  by  assent  and  love  from  you ;  an  escape 
from  the  poor  twilight  of  human  mediocrity  into  the 
precincts  of  a  lustre  which  can  never  fade.  A  soul  that 
goes  apart  with  this  divine  vision  of  goodness  has  that 
to  feed  on  which  others  think  not  of. 

2.  There  are  also  invisible  capacities  in  Humrin 
Nature,  a  latent  fund  of  diviner  affection,  without  an 
eye  on  which  we  shall  ill  sustain  the  depth  and  fresh- 
ness of  our  charity,  and  the  very  fountains  of  the  heart 
must  dry.  Look  only  at  the  surface  of  life,  either  where 
the  triflers  loiter  or  the  competing  crowd  pushes  its 
eager  way,  and  tramples  the  weak  upon  the  ground  ;  or 
enter  just  the  first  stratum  of  motive  immediately 
below,  where  men  dress  up  their  seeming  to  one  another, 
and  invent  decorous  disguises  for  their  selfishness  ;  and 
you  have  the  scene  before  you  which  turns  the  observer 
into  the  cynic  and  satirist.  And  carry  that  temper 
whither  you  will,  you  will  never  see  more  than  this :  all 


Secret  Trust.  149 

that  turns  up  will  confirm  it ;  for  it  elicits  what  is  akin 
to  itself;  it  creates  its  own  evidence  as  it  goes,  and 
publishes  it  in  the  journals  and  the  clubs  ;  and  drives 
whatever  contradicts  it  to  hide  in  the  forest  shades  of 
the  inmost  spirit  and  be  alone  with  God.  If  we  have 
no  trust,  and  frame  our  speech  and  tune  our  voice  as 
having  none,  we  shall  often  find  it  difficult  to  love  even 
our  friends  as  they  appear  to  us :  our  very  presence 
will  harden  them,  and  put  them  on  their  defence  ;  and 
by  many  a  carping  word,  or  chafing  of  the  spirit,  they 
will  do  injustice  to  themselves.  How  often  may  you 
hear  the  querulous  dialogue,  the  mutual  complaint,  the 
artificial  fenrv?  of  hurting  speech,  between  those  who,  if 
they  would  but  burst  the  barrier  of  their  pride,  would 
fall  into  eacn  other's  arms,  and  in  dismissing  the  fiend, 
let  the  reconciling  angel  in  !  The  pure  and  tender  eye 
which  is  not  arrested  by  the  troubled  and  broken  surface, 
but  sends  its  glance  behind  and  within,  not  only  sees 
the  actual  love  that  lives  there,  but  warms  and  wakes 
the  possible  love  that  was  asleep  and  never  stirred  before, 
Our  humanity,  touched  with  a  divine  freedom,  has 
larger  and  more  liberal  limits  than  its  critics  and  its 
students  dream  :  it  is  not  base  ;  it  is  not  noble  :  it  is  a 
vast  possibility  of  baseness  or  of  nobleness  ;  and  nothing 
so  kindles  its  high  spiritual  consciousness  and  trans- 
figures it  with  light  divine,  as  the  appeal  of  trustful 
sympathy,  and  the  expectant  light  of  a  brother's  faith. 
Could  we  not  treat  the  guilt  and  degradation  which 


150  Secret  Trust. 

defbrm  the  world  as  something  unnatural,  a  spoiling  of 
the  idea  of  God  and  the  possibilities  of  man,  could  we 
not  rely  on  some  supporting  response  when  we  bear 
down  upon  them  with  expostulating  call,  it  would  be  all 
over  with  our  patience  and  our  hope.  But  when  we 
pass  the  poor  deforming  exterior,  and  enter  the  inner 
nature,  and  ever  so  faintly  trace  the  sleeping  lineaments 
of  the  divine  image,  pity  despairs  no  more,  and  love 
recovers  from  its  recoil. 

8.  There  is,  finally,  an  invisible  meaning  and  Provi- 
dence in  Life,  which  alone,  through  the  clashing  voices 
and  dizzying  movements  of  the  scene  around,  can  steady 
the  tremblings  of  nature,  and  bring  a  quietude  to  the 
heart.  Were  we  sent  upon  this  stage  with  blind 
spiritual  eye,  and  committed  to  our  sensibilities  alone 
to  grope  about  and  judge  by  what  the  moments  bring, 
all  things  would  appear  confused  and  fragmentary  ;  and 
however  divine  the  poem  of  the  world,  the  scattered 
shreds  would  not  reveal  its  thought  or  the  broken  strains 
its  melody.  From  our  own  position,  simply  as  we  feel 
it,  all  security  and  peace  often  seem  to  pass  away  :  the 
ground  breaks  beneath  our  feet,  and,  as  in  a  dream 
where  there  is  nothing  solid  to  clutch  at,  we  sink  we 
know  not  whither.  On  the  bed  of  pain,  when  thought 
and  will  swim  feebly  away  and  we  are  condensed  into 
the  poignant  moments ;  when  we  long  for  the  night, 
but,  when  it  comes,  the  stars  glide  too  slowly  and  the 
silence  will  not  let  us  moan ;  and  we  watch  for  the 


Secret  Trust.  151 

morning,  but,  when  it  dawns,  the  soft  light  mocks  us 
with  its  sweetness  and  the  birds  with  the  blitheness  of 
their  song ;  in  the  vigils  of  anxiety,  when  some  life 
which  is  our  all  trembles  in  the  scale,  and  we  extort  a 
thousand  contradictory  oracles  from  the  flush  upon  the 
features  or  the  cloud  upon  the  eye  ; — under  the  sting 
of  calumny,  when  things  we  most  abhor  are  told  of  us, 
and  averted  faces  and  sarcastic  words  show  that  the  lie 
has  proved  too  strong  and  the  love  of  friends  too  weak ; 
• — in  the  countless  vicissitudes  of  broken  fortune  and 
shattered  health  and  disappointed  hopes ;  all  must  look 
like  ruin,  if  we  have  no  stay  beyond  the  impression  of 
the  hour.  And  even  though  we  should  not  be  upon  the 
rack  of  suffering  ourselves,  how  often,  if  there  were 
nothing  behind  the  things  we  see,  might  the  immediate 
aspect  and  courses  of  the  world  disturb  us  !  When  the 
minds  of  men  seem  to  fall  into  confusion,  deserted  by 
the  simple  sanctities  of  their  fathers  but  not  yet  emerg- 
ing into  any  clearness  of  their  own ;  when,  for  want  of 
any  firm  foothold  of  right,  authority  quails  and  rude 
forces  triumph ;  when  audacity  seizes  upon  states,  yet 
is  itself  afflicted  with  the  wavering  of  irremediable 
doubt ;  when  churches,  enfeebled  within  by  puerile 
superstitions,  stand  amid  a  rising  flood  of  atheistic 
denial ;  when  the  distinctions  slip,  away  between  veracity 
and  pretence,  between  trade  and  theft,  between  modesty 
and  license  ;  we  might  well  despond,  if  we  did  not  look 
beyond  the  present,  and  interpret  it  by  the  light  of  a 


152  Secret  Trust. 

diviner  thought  than  animates  its  actors.  But  lifted  to 
an  adequate  distance  from  it,  and  assigning  to  it  its 
place  in  the  Providence  of  humanity,  we  discern  it  but 
as  a  pulsation  in  the  line  of  time,  one  of  those  moments 
of  alternate  tension  and  relaxation  which  are  separately 
dark,  but  together  make  the  very  light  by  which  we 
see.  Thither,  to  that  divine  elevation  above  momentary 
things,  let  the  soul  resort  in  faith ;  and  the  sorrowful 
clouds  that  shut  it  in  are  surmounted,  and  the  ever- 
lasting sunshine  reached.  In  frailty  and  in  trembling, 
we  rest  in  an  eternal  calm.  In  loneliness,  we  have  still 
an  ever  living  communion.  Deserted  by  the  voices  of 
affection,  we  are  with  Him  who  attuned  their  sweetness, 
and  will  console  their  loss.  And  djmg,  we  do  but  pass 
to  the  very  source  and  home  of  life. 


xn. 

S0rrrjfos  xif 


JOHN  xii.  27. 

"  Now  is  my  soul  troubled ;  and  what  shall  I  say  ?  Father,  save  me 
from  this  hour  ?  but  for  this  cause  came  I  unto  this  hour.  Father ! 
glorify  thy  name.'5 

IN  Rome  there  are  ancient  catacombs  which  were  used 
by  the  primitive  Christians  for  interment  of  their  dead. 
As  depositories  of  the  ashes  of  a  lost  generation,  they 
are  nought  to  us  :  the  dust  of  believer  or  unbeliever, 
of  the  sinful  or  the  saint,  is  drifted  by  the  winds  of 
time  into  the  common  wreck  of  our  humanity.  But  a 
single  mark  made  by  a  living  hand  is  worth  all  the 
remains  of  death  sealed  and  treasured  with  so  much 
care ;  especially  when  traced  in  moments  of  truth  and 
tenderness  on  the  curtain  drawn  around  the  sleep  of 
friends  :  and  the  outside  of  the  urn  and  the  sarcophagus 
may  teach  a  more  instructive  lesson  than  can  be  learned 
from  the  emptiness  within.  Now  throughout  the  deco- 
rative emblems  and  inscriptions  in  the  early  Christian 


154  The  Sorrows  of  Messiah. 

cemeteries,  it  has  been  remarked,  one  uniform  character 
may  be  observed, — their  spirit  of  cheerfulness  and  hope. 
By  some  fresh  breath,  the  gloom  seems  all  swept  out 
from  the  chamber  of  so  many  griefs ;  and  a  sweet  and 
placid  light  to  fill  the  place,  other  than  the  glare  of 
earthly  day,  and  like  an  enclosure  of  starlight  from  the 
skies.  The  images  and  pictures  on  the  walls  exclude 
all  the  horrors,  and  present  only  the  sanctity,  of  death  ; 
assuring  us  that  survivors  kept  over  it  a  secure  and 
quiet  vigil,  invested  it  with  peaceful  thoughts,  and 
looked  through  it  to  a  holy  and  passionless  existence. 
There,  the  evergreen  leaf  protests,  in  sculptured  silence, 
that  the  winter  of  the  grave  cannot  touch  the  saintly 
sotil :  the  blossoming  branch  speaks  of  vernal  suns 
beyond  the  snows  of  this  chill  world  :  the  good  Shep- 
herd shows,  from  his  benign  looks,  that  the  mortal  way, 
so  terrible  to  nature,  had  become  to  those  Christians  as 
the  meadow  path,  between  the  grassy  slopes  and  beside 
the  still  waters.  Yet  were  these  mausoleums  peopled 
by  no  favoured  race.  They  were  the  last  asylum  of  the 
persecuted ;  they  opened  the  first  shelter  to  the  weary 
and  despised :  side  by  side  with  those  who  had  fallen 
asleep  on  the  pillow  of  domestic  care,  were  many  who 
had  died  th«  martyr's  death,  and  mingled  their  last  sigh, 
not  with  the  sobs  of  affection,  but  with  the  fiendish 
shouts  of  the  amphitheatre.  When  this  is  borne  in 
mind,  the  impress  of  cheerfulness  on  the  symbolic 
memorials  of  the  place  cannot  fail  to  strike  us  as  re- 


The  Sorrows  of  Messiah.  155 

naarkable.  That  the  victims  pelted  hither  by  the  storms 
of  a  merciless  world  should  be  laid  down  upon  the  earth 
without  a  mark  of  anger  or  a  burst  of  mourning,  but 
only  with  the  mild  farewell  of  affection  and  of  hope, 
attests  the  power  of  the  new  faith  to  still  with  its  word 
the  fiercest  tempest  of  grief  and  passion. 

This  indication  however  is  in  perfact  agreement  with 
otner  signs  of  a  fearless  and  glad  enthusiasm  pervading 
the  early  Church.  Rome  was  startled  by  the  appear- 
ance, in  her  effeminate  cities,  of  a  people  whom  it  was 
impossible  to  terrify ;  on  whom  torture  and  death,  con- 
secrated by  some  invisible  charm,  lost  their  deterring 
power ;  who  reminded  her  of  her  old  republican  hardi- 
hood, only  that  it  was  not  so  much  manty  as  godlike ; 
who  amid  the  pestilence,  or  after  the  siege,  came  into 
the  streets  to  cool  the  fevers  of  death,  and  soothe  the 
rage  of  despair;  who  escorted  the  martyr  to  his  end 
with  envious  gratulations,  and  greeted  the  earthquake 
itself  with  the  hymn  of  redemption. 

And  even  earlier  than  any  organized  Christendom, 
we  find,  in  the  apostolic  writings  themselves,  abundant 
traces  of  the  same  spirit.  What  can  be  more  free  and 
buoyant,  with  all  their  variety,  than  the  writings  of 
Paul?  Brilliant,  broken,  impetuous,  as  the  mountain 
torrent  freshly  filled,  never  smooth  and  calm,  but  on 
the  eve  of  some  bold  leap,  never  vehement  but  to  fill 
some  receptacle  of  clearest  peace,  they  present  every- 
where the  image  of  a  vigorous  joy.  Beneath  the  form 


156  The  Sorrows  of  Messiah. 

of  their  theosopbic  reasonings,  and  their  hints  of  deep 
philosophy,  there  may  be  heard  a  secret  lyric  strain  of 
glorious  praise,  bursting  at  times  into  open  utterance 
and  asking  others  to  join  in  chorus.  "  Rejoice  in  the 
Lord  always !  and  again,  I  say  unto  you,  Rejoice !  " 
His  life  was  a  battle ;  from  which,  in  intervals  of  the 
good  fight,  his  words  arose  as  the  song  of  victory. 

The  primitive  followers  of  the  faith  then  were  all  of 
one  heart  and  mind ;  and  that  was  a  heart  of  free  and 
natural  joy.  Yet  they  were  disciples  of  one  who  is 
known  to  all  ages  as  the  Man  of  sorrows ;  of  one  serene 
indeed  in  spirit,  and  of  a  strength  divine  and  clear ;  but 
with  the  tinge  throughout  of  a  sad  earnestness, — some- 
times flushing  up  into  a  transient  glow  of  hope, — rarely 
deepening  into  the  shade  of  a  visible  anguish  ;  and  yet 
throughout,  from  the  wrestlings  in  the  desert  to  his  cry 
upon  the  cross,  showing  itself  in  miracles  of  pity  and 
in  nights  of  prayer ;  in  the  light  of  his  love  and  the 
flash  of  his  invective, — his  delight  in  nature  and  in 
childhood,  his  abhorrence  of  Pharisees  and  hypocrites ; 
in  the  deep  beauty  of  his  parables,  and  the  melancholy 
wisdom  of  his  prophecies ;  in  the  sedate  unity  of  his 
life  and  the  quiet  majesty  of  his  death.  How  indeed 
is  he  represented  by  the  emblem  in  which  Christendom 
has  embodied  its  veneration  ?  The  crucifix  is  the 
accepted  symbol  of  grief  divinely  borne. 

Whence  is  this  contrast  between  the  disciple  and  the 
Master  ?     Why,  when  we  look  beneath  the  garment  of 


The  Sorrows  of  Messiah.  157 

praise,  do  we  find,  at  the  heart  of  the  religion,  the 
spirit  of  sadness?  The  outward  lot  of  Paul  was  not 
less  severe  than  that  of  the  Crucified  himself;  and  he 
had  certainly  no  hope,  no  trust,  no  comfort,  which  had 
not  been  imparted  by  the  author  of  his  faith.  Could 
Jesus  give  a  gladness  it  was  not  permitted  him  to  share, 
and  by  the  gentle  hand  of  his  religion  wipe  away  all 
tears  except  his  own  ?  All  theologies  are  much  per- 
plexed to  afford  any  account  of  this.  If  he  was  an 
inspired  man,  why  did  not  his  inspiration  lift  him 
beyond  the  range  of  grief,  and  awaken  in  him  the 
temper  which  it  produced  in  others  at  secondhand  ? 
If,  as  others  say,  he  was  God  veiled  in  the  flesh,  how 
could  he  have  sorrow  beyond  even  the  measure  of  a 
man  ? 

Nothing  in  truth  can  be  more  natural,  if  we  did  not 
persist  in  looking  for  the  explanation  in  the  wrong 
place.  Assuming  that,  under  one  name  or  other,  there 
was  in  Christ  a  blending  of  divine  and  human  elements, 
we  fancy  that  it  was  his  participation  in  the  human 
nature  which  bruised  him  with  sorrow,  and  that  his 
higher  attributes,  by  their  imperfect  amount  or  occa- 
sional retreat,  fell  short  of  power  to  heal  the  wounds. 
Had  this  been  so,  then  those  who,  with  the  disciples, 
stood  upon  a  lower  level  of  humanity,  would  have  been 
sunk  into  a  deeper  darkness,  instead  of  being  lifted  into 
a  more  cheerful  light.  No,  it  was  the  Divine  spirit  in 
Christ, — as  it  is  in  every  noble  heart, — that  subdued 


158  The  Sorrows  of  Messiah. 

him  to  that  earnest  sadness,  which,  under  human  im- 
pulse only,  would  have  been  soon  forgot.  However  true 
it  may  be  that  "Man  is  born  to  trouble,"  he  owes  the 
distinction  not  to  his  inferior,  but  to  his  highest  powers. 
Reason  alone  has  the  privilege  of  tears :  Conscience 
trembles  with  remorse ;  creative  Thought  laments  its 
poor  performance  ;  and  the  light  of  Love  casts  the  long 
shadow  of  death.  Lift  off  these  crowning  faculties, 
and  you  remove  at  once  our  griefs  and  glory,  and  let  us 
down  to  the  poor  level  of  unfallen  Adam.  If  labour 
and  sorrow  come  of  the  lapse  in  Paradise,  we  have 
reason  to  bless  the  sinning  mother  of  all  flesh,  that  she 
held  not  her  hand  from  the  forbidden  fruit,  and  ex- 
changed the  grass  and  flowers  of  Eden  for  the  rock,  the 
thistle,  and  the  thorn.  It  is  not  as  child  of  the  earth, 
but  as  a  Son  of  God,  that  man  has  his  heritage  of  care. 
And  in  proportion  as  the  Divine  spirit  is  transcendent 
over  the  inferior  nature,  and  through  higher  and  higher 
brightness  becomes  a  supernatural  light  of  the  world, 
must  the  shadow  deepen  too ;  till  in  Messiah  we  reach 
the  limit  of  inspired  sorrow ;  where  the  lot  and  outward  . 
scope  of  being  is  finite  as  in  other  men ;  but  the  soul, 
immeasurable  and  infinite. 

Far  from  its  being  wonderful  that  the  disciples 
should  have  a  joy  to  which  the  Master  was  a  stranger, 
it  is  the  necessary  consequence  of  their  relative  posi- 
tion. He  who  himself  is  a  religion,  must  needs  miss 
the  chief  solace  of  religion.  Others  believe  in  him ; 


The  Sorrows  of  Messiah.  1 59 

but  he  has  no  mediator  in  the  immensity  that  leads 
to  the  Most  High.  They  gather,  with  reverent  affec- 
tion, round  him,  and  feel  a  perfect  rest ;  finding  in  him 
a  representative  image  of  all  that  is  Divine,  a  mid- 
point of  clear  conception  beyond  which  they  cannot 
go :  but  he  stands,  with  uncovered  head,  beneath  the 
Infinite,  and  has  no  help  to  God  but  his  own  poor 
thoughts.  They  live,  as  we  all  do  unconsciously,  by 
communicated  religion,  the  instinctive  dependence  of 
lower  souls  upon  the  higher,  and  the  divine  right 
of  the  greater  to  hold  the  less  :  but  he  has  no  higher, 
no  greater,  and,  while  ruling  systems  of  minds,  floats 
through  space  with  no  guiding  attraction  except  to  the 
awful  Centre  which  is  everywhere.  No  Messiah  of  heaven 
can  find  a  disciple's  rest  at  the  feet  of  them  who  sit 
in  Moses'  seat.  And  yet  no  one  can  be  his  own  Christ. 
It  is  this  singular  position,  beyond  all  the  beaten  ways 
and  city  lamps  of  the  habitable  earth,  on  the  confines 
of  eternal  night,  and  amid  the  breaking  lights  of  a 
new  world,  that  fills  the  prophet's  soul,  ever  genial 
and  tender  beneath  its  sublime  strength,  with  sorrow 
even  unto  death.  He  cannot  love  and  have  a  home  in 
a  sphere  which  is  not  yet  hung  up  in  heaven,  and 
which  he  spends  himself  in  creating :  and  so,  the 
meanest  things  have  a  shelter  denied  to  him  ;  and  the 
saying  comes  to  pass  as  it  is  written,  "  the  foxes  have 
holes,  and  the  birds  of  the  air  have  nests,  but  the  Son 
of  Man  hath  not  where  to  lay  his  head." 


160  The  Sorrows  of  Messiah. 

Consider,  for  instance,  the  difference  there  is  between 
obeying  a  Law,  and  following  out  a  heart  of  Love. 
It  is  poorly  represented  by  the  difference  between  the 
piecework  of  industry  and  the  creation  of  genius.  The 
apostles  were  entrusted  with  a  definite  and  prescribed 
task,  requiring  indeed  alacrity  of  heart  and  fidelity  of 
will  and  heroism  of  resolve,  but  still  a  task  clear  and 
fixed,  and  in  which  settled  ways  were  possible,  and 
skill  and  habit  would  avail  them,  and  visible  progress 
might  be  made.  And  this  type  of  life,  viz.  of  Duty 
within  appointed  limits,  and  desires  coextensive  in 
their  range,  is  the  happiest  of  all.  It  has  the  healthi- 
ness of  labour  in  its  progress,  and  the  rewards  of 
labour  in  its  close.  It  is  essentially  the  life  of  child- 
hood, environed  with  an  invisible  protection,  and  with 
the  freedom  of  an  unreluctant  obedience.  Tell  me 
only  the  burden  I  have  to  bear,  and  weigh  it  out  before 
me  day  by  day,  and  let  it  but  be  according  to  the 
measure  of  a  man,  and  I  can  lift  it  up  with  joy.  And 
BO  it  was  even  with  the  various  life  of  Paul.  He  had 
a  thing  to  say,  and  then  to  take  the  consequences: 
his  instructions  never  changed ;  and  in .  peril  and  in 
prison,  he  was  still  an  ambassador  in  bonds.  When 
he  had  done  at  Antioch,  he  could  go  to  Corinth  :  when 
he  had  affrighted  Diana  at  Ephesus,  he  could  take 
passage  over  the  ^Egean  and  defy  Minerva  on  Mars 
hill :  having  made  his  defence  in  Jerusalem,  by  appeal 
to  Caesar  he  could  see  Rome  also,  introduce  the  Prince 


The  Sorrows  of  Messiah.  1 6  T 

of  Peace  in  the  metropolis  of  a  nation  of  soldiers,  and 
plant  the  cross  ahove  the  capitol.     And  as  he  went, 
he  could  count  the  synagogues  he  had  converted,  and 
the  centres  of  Christian  light  he  had  left  behind.     He 
had  moreover  some  forty  years  of  toil,  in  which  to  see 
how  the  lahour  of  his  hands  could  prosper  and  grow  ; 
how  the  blessed  seed  could  burst  the  sullen  soil  and 
show  its  green  young  life,  now  here,  now  there  ;  till  in 
the  winter  of  his  own  age,  the  seasons  of  God  seemed 
to  bring  a  warmer  sky,  and  crown  his  tillage  with  a 
reproductive  blossom  ere  he  dies.     But  the  Master's 
mission  was  different  from  this.     It  was  a  work  not  to 
be  reckoned  by  quantity  at  all,  but  by  quality  alone, 
so  that  one  might  almost  doubt,  from  any  measurable 
symptoms,  whether  it  had  a  real  existence.     No  long 
and  versatile    career  was    permitted    to    spread   and 
multiply  its  power.     He  was  gone  before  mid-life  ;  and 
three   years   at   most    achieved   the   work  which  two 
thousand   assuredly  will   not  exhaust ;    and   the   poor 
villages   of    Galilee,  and   the  precincts   of  Jerusalem 
bounded  the  steps  of  him,  at  whose  name  the  front 
ranks  of  all  mankind,  for  fifty  generations,  have  bent 
the  knee.      And  his   sorrow,   therefore,   lay  in   this  ; 
that  he  did  not  know,  and  as  a  consequence   of   his 
inspiration  could  not  know,  what  he  did,  except  that 
it  was  his  best,  or  whither  he  went,   except    that    it 
was  whereto  God  was  sending  him.     No  standard  of 
usage  or  habit  availed  him  to  compute  his  way  :  false 

M 


1 62  7 he  Sorrows  of  Messiah. 

formulas  can  no  more  estimate  a  true  soul,  than 
equations  can  solve  you  the  beauty  of  the  morning 
light.  He  could  not  move  for  a  single  step  in  the 
beaten  ways  which  were  the  high  road  of  hypocrites 
and  had  their  ending  in  destruction  ;  yet  he  fell  upon 
a  time  over  which  no  other  path  was  traced.  So  he 
had  to  dispense  with  the  help  of  custom ;  to  break 
through  all  dreamy  traditional  veneration  for  things 
abominable  to  his  inner  heart ;  to  see  for  himself  the 
true  and  divine  path  of  light  through  the  clouds  which 
his  age  and  place  had  thrown  around  him  ;  content  if 
he  could  only  discern  the  next  step  clearly  ;  and  ready 
to  follow  the  pointings  of  the  finger  of  God,  though 
it  directed  his  foot  upon  the  sea,  or  bade  him  walk 
sheer  off  into  the  darkness  of  the  abyss.  At  every 
instant  he  had  to  find  his  work  by  the  living  spirit 
of  love  and  truth  and  trust,  without  and  against  the 
dead  momentum  of  habit  and  of  law.  It  was  a  moral 
life  without  sleep  ;  a  watch  in  the  great  observatory 
of  nature  through  a  night  that  never  yielded  to  the 
dawn,  with  eye  ever  strained  on  the  eternal  stars. 
Hence  the  sublime  faintness  of  the  inspired  soul ;  kept 
awake  by  the  resistless  glory  of  the  Creator ;  yet 
sinking  with  the  pale  exhaustion  of  the  creature. 

The  prophet's  heart,  moreover,  is  rich  in  deep 
affections  ;  open  to  all  gentleness  and  beauty  ;  quick  to 
pity ;  eager  to  love ;  and  in  spite  of  its  clear  percep- 
tions of  spiritual  things,  not  without  a  certain  distrust 


The  Sorrows  of  Messiah.  163 

and  self-renunciation  that  make  it  long  for  the 
answering  suffrage  of  other  minds  to  say  '  Amen  '  to 
all  its  prayers.  Yet,  from  the  necessity  of  the  case, 
he  lives  in  absolute  loneliness :  he  stands  where 
sympathy  cannot  reach :  he  leans  his  head  on  the 
bosom  of  no  equal,  and  must  put  up  with  poor 
disciples'  blind  sorrow  at  his  sighs.  He  is  alone, 
except  with  God ;  and  God  alas !  is  silent  always  ; — 
a  thing  that  makes  a  great  difference  to  a  loving  and 
dependent  soul.  "  Answer  me,  0  God  !  "  is  the  cry 
not  only  of  ancient  seers,  but  of  human  nature  in 
its  grief  and  aspiration  in  every  age.  The  tone  of  a 
living  voice,  coming  across  the  misgivings  of  nature, 
and  rendering  response  to  the  aspirations  of  the 
wrestling  and  solitary  spirit,  would  raise  it  up  in 
conscious  and  joyful  power.  But  this  is  denied  to 
the  doubts  and  anguish  of  the  saviours  of  the  world. 
Their  cries  and  tears  are  dissipated  and  lost  in  the 
immensity  into  which  they  are  thrown ;  and  there  is 
"  silence  in  heaven  "  unto  this  hour.  This  it  is  that 
makes  the  grandeur,  yet  the  desolation,  of  a  life  of 
absolute  faith  ;  this,  which  brings  to  the  Redeemer  the 
deep  trouble  of  the  soul ;  without,  however,  tempting 
him  to  say  "  Father,  save  me  from  this  hour  !  "  but, 
seeing  that  "  for  this  cause  came  he  unto  this  hour," 
leaving  him  content  to  say  "  Father,  glorify  thy 
name  !  " 


M  2 


xm. 

«a*  of    ife. 


MATT.  xiv.  19-21. 

"  And  he  commanded  the  multitude  to  sit  down  on  the  grass ;  and  took 
the  five  loaves  and  the  two  fishes,  and  looking  up  to  heaven  he  blessed 
and  brake  ;  and  gave  the  loaves  to  his  disciples,  and  the  disciples  to  the 
multitude.  And  they  did  all  eat,  and  were  filled ;  and  they  took  up  of 
the  fragments  that  remained  twelve  baskets  full.  And  they  that  had 
eaten  were  about  five  thousaud  men,  beside  women  a^d  children." 

JOHN  vi.  49-51. 

"  Your  fathers  did  eat  manna  in  the  wilderness  and  are  dead  :  this  ia 
the  bread  which  oometh  down  from  heaven,  that  a  man  may  eat  thereof 
and  not  die  ;  I  am  the  living  bread  which  came  c'own  from  heaven." 

THE  Israelitish  tradition  of  the  manna  in  the  wilderness 
left  behind  it  a  long  bequest  of  imagery  and  doctrine. 
To  the  nation  whose  romantic  history  it  enriched,  this 
"angels'  food"  became  the  favourite  emblem  of  the 
providing  care  of  God ;  first,  of  the  affluence  of  his 
natural  supplies ;  then,  of  the  fulness  of  his  spiritual 
grace.  To  the  Poet  telling  of  His  pity  who  hears  the 
raven's  cry, — to  the  Prophet  promising  His  answer  to 
the  deeper  hunger  of  the  soul,  no  illustration  so  readily 


The  Bread  of  Life.  165 

occurred,  as  the  dry  desert  sparkling  in  the  morning 
with  his  riches  as  with  the  dew,  and  the  shower  of 
plenty  that  fell  as  crumbs  from  the  table  of  infinitude. 
The  earliest  records  of  our  religion  cannot  otherwise 
express  the  influence  which  diffused  itself  from  the 
presence  and  spirit  of  Jesus,  than  by  at  once  comparing 
and  contrasting  him  with  the  old  Lawgiver  and  his 
miraculous  supplies.  Moses  gave  the  fathers  support 
adequate  to  the  perishable  life  of  nature :  Christ 
cherished  in  their  children  the  undying  life  of  the 
SQU!  : — Moses  furnished  them  with  an  outward  food, 
gathered  on  the  ground  and  not  less  strange  to  him 
than  to  themselves :  Christ  offered  them  no  foreign 
discovery,  nothing  but  himself :  he  found  the  divine 
element  within  him,  and  in  his  own  person  was  the 
bread  of  life.  He  also,  though  on  the  grassy  hills  of 
Galilee  instead  of  among  the  sands  and  rocks  of  Horeb, 
was  with  a  mighty  multitude  in  a  desert  place;  and 
there  he  fed  them  too,  so  that  they  need  never  want  or 
thirst  again ;  but  withal  gave  them  nothing  but  him- 
self :  when  he  was  there,  he  was  his  OAvn  sacrament ; 
— the  most  lifegiving  element  that  ever  came  from 
heaven.  This  is  the  meaning  which,  according  to  the 
fourth  Gospel,  he  himself  has  put  upon  his  feeding  the 
multitude ;  and  in  treating  it  as  expressive  of  the 
essence  of  his  religion  and  the  mode  of  his  influence, 
rather  than  as  a  bald  wonder  of  the  material  kind,  we 
do  but  obey  his  injunction  to  look  not  at  the  meat  that 


1 66  The  Bread  of  Life. 

perisheth,  but  at  that  which  endureth  unto  everlasting 
life.  The  narrative  is  evidently  emblematic,  and  finds 
its  true  and  permanent  significance  in  the  idea  which  it 
embodies,  and  of  which  the  occurrence  it  relates  is  but 
the  vehicle.  If  you  take  the  fact  as  historical,  then  it 
is  the  picture-writing  of  Providence,  the  allegory  of 
God,  by  which  he  represents  to  us  tho  ministrations  of 
Christ  to  the  eternal  cravings  of  our  secret' nature.  If 
otherwise,  then  it  is  the  human  product  of  the  very 
same  truth,  the  attempt  to  fix  arid  sculpture  in  the 
substance  of  concrete  incident  the  reality  of  his  creative 
energy  as  the  supporter  and  vivifyer  of  souls, — the 
flowing  feeling,  congealing  itself,  as  consciousness 
grows  cold,  into  the  solidity  of  history;  just  as  the 
mystic  imagery  of  Jesus,  as  he  breathed  out  his  last 
words  of  affection,  and  brake  the  bread  of  parting  and 
handed  the  wine  of  his  remembrance,  has  been  turned 
into  physical  dogma,  and  petrified  into  a  eucharistic 
incarnation.  In  any  case  the  fact  exists  only  for  the 
sake  of  the  divine  truth  which  holds  it  in  a  permanent 
abode. 

The  little  basket,  carried  up  among  the  hills,  fur- 
nished beneath  the  hand  of  Christ  an  ample  feast. 
And  no  less  a  marvel  does  God  work  with  all  the  pure 
in  heart  who  go  up  into  the  lonely  place  to  meet  him. 
Be  they  only  not  quite  empty  of  truth  and  love  ;  let 
them  have  but  the  poorest  pilgrim's  unleavened  cake 
of  sincerity  and  faith ;  and  when  they  have  spread  their 


The  Bread  of  Life.  167 

insufficiency  before  God,  and  broken  it  into  its  worth- 
lessness  for  his  blessing  to  enter,  they  shall  return 
richer  than  they  came  and  gather  more  than  they  had 
brought.  The  rules  of  quantity,  the  laws  of  weight 
and  measure,  do  not  hold  beyond  the  outward  world ; 
they  disappear  wherever  the  Holy  Spirit  claims  its  own. 
The  smallest  spiritual  store,  taken  into  the  most  retired 
spot,  has  a  self-multiplying  power;  and  if  only  used 
with  holy  trust,  will  pass  the  dimensions  of  nature  and 
betray  the  resources  of  the  infinite.  The  great  Creative 
Spirit  is  ever  ready  to  touch  the  merest  grain  of  manna 
in  the  heart,  and  make  it  numerous  to  shine  on  all  the 
ground.  He  to  whcm  space  is  the  seed-plot  of  stars 
has  in  the  human  soul  a  tillage  more  lustrous  in  the 
sowing  and  more  enduring  in  the  fruits.  When  he 
flings  a  handful  of  moral  endowments  into  the  furrows 
of  our  nature,  he  never  withholds  the  mellowing  winds 
and  dews;  and  the  germs  will  not  perish  unless  we 
deny  them  root.  Within  the  smallest  genuine  grace 
he  has  wrapped  up  boundless  possibilities;  and  who- 
ever will  but  believe  in  it  and  apply  it  faithfully  shall 
never  fail  of  more.  There  is  no  one  so  miscreated  or 
misplaced  as  to  have  within  him  no  germs  of  good, 
from  which  a  fruitful  circle  may  be  made  to  spread. 
Just  as  in  the  Pacific  Ocean,  if  once  a  coral  rock  is 
built  up  to  the  level  of  the  tide  and  feels  the  caresses 
of  the  wind,  some  little  speck  of  life  appears,  and  as 
the  island  rises,  widens  till  it  dips  into  the  salt  waves ; 


1 68  The  Bread  of  Life. 

so  in  the  most  desolate  mind,  born  furthest  from  the 
main-land  of  hope  and  power,  there  is  never  wanting 
some  point  of  native  green,  that  may  creep,  as  it  were, 
from  stone  to  stone,  till  it  fairly  drive  the  barrenness 
away.  If  you  will  but  find  God's  living  gift  within 
you,  and  simply  trust  it  when  it  presses  into  growth, 
there  is  not  a  waste  place  of  your  nature  that  shall  not 
become  habitable,  and  even  glorious  with  a  wild  beauty. 
Whatever  you  may  doubt,  something  there  is  which  you 
deem  true  ;  however  much  is  common  and  unclean,  you 
have  your  gleams  of  what  is  surely  holy ;  wherever  you 
are  weak,  there  is  some  matter  on  which  your  secret 
eye  is  clear,  and  your  foot  is  firm.  Here  then  is  the 
ground  on  which  your  moral  life  is  to  be  raised. 
Whithersoever  others  may  lead  you,  here  is  your  native 
well-spring  of  faith  and  love ;  whatsoever  others  may 
teach,  this  is  the  divine  oracle  to  you.  Sink  deeply 
into  this,  and  be  at  one  with  it,  worship  in  it,  live  from 
it,  ere  you  even  try  to  know  or  undertake  to  do  aught 
else.  Till  you  get  down  to  the  foundations  of  your 
natural  piety  and  touch  sacred  ground,  you  cannot 
raise  the  superstructure  of  either  your  knowledge  or 
your  action.  Heed  not  what  is  dark,  play  not  with 
what  is  perplexed,  believe  not  your  unbelief,  till  you 
have  flung  yourself  into  your  real  faith,  and  done  the 
thing  you  most  revere.  He  that  will  follow  the  will  of 
God  where  it  is  clear  shall  find  less  than  before  that  is 
obscure ;  and  no  step  on  holy  ground  will  ever  bring 


The  Bread  of  Life.  169 

you  nearer  to  a  soil  barren  and  unblest.  There  is  a 
wonderful  power  in  gimple  pure  veracity,  that  knows  its 
own  pretences  and  can  tell  its  seeing  from  its  dreams ; 
that  has  an  ear  for  the  still  voice  of  God,  instead  of 
drowning  it  in  the  hum  of  its  own  sophistries ;  and  an 
eye  to  watch  his  lights  and  shades,  instead  of  suf- 
fusing all  things  with  its  own  colouring.  From  such 
guileless  and  open  conscience  he  is  never  entirely  hid  ; 
some  dear  and  holy  secret,  minute  it  may  be,  but 
precious  as  a  known  star  upon  an  unknown  sea,  he 
makes  distinct  and  clear  :  and  since  his  infinite  nature, 
perfect  as  a  sphere,  surrounds  us  every  way,  it  matters 
not  from  what  bright  point  you  begin  to  trace  its 
glories :  there  are  a  thousand  great  circles  of  truth 
and  goodness  stretched  across  its  immensity,  any  one 
of  which  will  take  you  to  fresh  lights,  yet  bring  you 
whence  you  came.  If  a  man  will  but  leave  off  deceiv- 
ing himself,  lay  aside  his  intellectual  and  imaginative 
arts,  and  reduce  himself  to  spiritual  simplicity  ;  he  will 
find  a  path  by  light  other  than  his  own, — a  light  from 
which  doubt  and  unreality  flies  away.  Faithful  to  his 
first  grace,  he  is  enriched  with  a  second:  devoutly 
serving  the  authority  of  this,  his  gift  is  still  enlarged  : 
he  becomes  wiser  and  nobler  and  nearer  to  God,  at 
every  stage  ;  till  at  last  the  very  fragments  and  leavings 
of  his  faithfulness,  the  dropped  words  of  his  insight, 
the  casual  deeds  of  his  affection,  exceed  the  first  entire 
amount.  And  he  that  begins  with  fasting  himself 


1 70  The  Bread  of  Life. 

leaves  enough  on  the  ground  to  fill  the  satchel  of  a 
dozen  apostles. 

The   reduction    however  of    the   mind   to    spiritual 

simplicity,  the  return  to  a  childlike  transparency,  is  a 

change  which,  though  it  seems   but  the  cessation  of 

art,  is  often  heyond  the  mere  wishes  and  strivings  of 

nature.     Most  men,  when  they  have  discovered  their 

own  unreality,  and  suspected  their  miserable  delusions, 

continue  in  them  all  the  same  ;  and  feel  like  one  who 

undergoes  shipwreck    in  a  dream,   and  sees  the  firm 

land  close  by,  yet  can  put  forth  neither  hand  nor  foot 

to  reach  it.     Strange  that,  of  all  possible  tasks,  simply 

to  be  ivhat   we  are  should  prove,  not  the  easiest,  but 

infinitely  the  hardest !     It  is  the  saddest  evidence,  if 

not  of  a  "  fallen,"  yet  of  an  abused  and  sin-beclouded 

nature,  that  to  revert  to  our  primitive  faith,  to  come  to 

ingenuous  terms  with  our  genuine  love,  and  live  out 

of  the   hearty  kernel   of  our  being,   is   at  once  the 

nearest  and  the  rarest  of  attainments.     Needing  only 

quiet  surrender  and  bringing  only  heavenly  peace,  it 

is  evaded  by  incessant    efforts   and  postponed  for  a 

corroding  misery.      But  wherever  this  pure   grace  of 

simplicity  exists,  it  has  for  men  a  secret  and  irresistible 

charm.      They  recognise   in  it   the   traces   of    God's 

immediate  presence, — the  conditions  of  his  inspiration, 

— the  light  from  him  which  they  too  have  felt  and  lost. 

It  is  the  holy  prophet's  grace,  that  keeps  from  before 

his  eye  every  deforming  veil,  and  leaves  him  face  to 


The  Bread  of  Life.  171 

face  with  divine  things,  and  gives  him  communion 
with  the  Spirit  of  all  truth.  Quite  different  from 
philosophic  reflection,  which  employs  the  mediation  of 
reasoning  and  the  instrument  of  analysis,  and  arrives 
at  its  conclusions  by  methods  of  which  it  can  render 
logical  account,  that  purity  of  heart  which  sees  God 
discerns  him  by  the  immediate  glance  of  sympathy. 
Standing  in  front  of  the  great  curtain  of  appearance, 
on  which  the  shadows  of  his  thought  are  thrown,  it 
watches  them  as  they  traverse,  and  interprets  them 
with  the  infallible  apprehension  of  a  congenial  soul. 
How  he  reads  off  the  meaning  and  expressiveness  of 
things  and  meets  in  them  the  very  heart  of  God,  such 
a  one  is  unable  to  explain :  only,  that  meaning  is  plain 
and  certain  to  him  as  sorrow  in  human  tears  and 
aspiration  in  the  lifted  eye.  The  divine  Indwelling  in 
the  mind  of  man  is  ever,  I  believe,,  in  some  uncon- 
scious grace  at  first,— some  reverence,  some  love,  which 
possesses  him ;  which  is  not  the  object  of  his  thought, 
but  the  very  colour  of  his  thinking ;  which  he  did  not 
form  by  the  laws  of  his  movement,  but  which  con- 
stitutes his  invisible  axis  of  revolution.  He  does  not 
know  his  own  gift,  but  only  the  duty  and  the  God 
to  which  it  bears  him.  It  makes  him  feel  the  false- 
hood of  the  world,  without  being  aware  of  his  own 
truth :  it  impels  him  to  be  alone,  and  to  go  up  above 
the  mists  into  the  solitude  of  prayer :  it  places  before 
him  a  universe  of  realities  different  from  that  which 


1 72  The  Bread  of  Life. 

occupies  ordinary  men,  and  throws  the  great  drama 
of  existence,  with  all  its  intense  interests,  off  from  the 
transient  stage  of  material  semblance  into  the  eternal 
theatre  of  invisible  justice.  He  is  detected  by  others 
to  be  a  revelation  ere  he  finds  it  himself ;  and  when 
he  retires  among  the  hills  for  private  communion,  he 
draws  all  men  unto  him.  They  follow  him  by  an 
impulse  scarcely  more  conscious  of  its  nature  than  his 
own  ;  looking  indeed  with  wonder  on  him,  but  unaware 
what  it  is  in  themselves  that  needs  him  and  looks 
up  to  him  for  help  and  guidance.  They  know  not 
the  depth  of  their  spiritual  hunger :  he  knows  not  the 
riches  of  his  divine  supply ;  yet  by  the  mystic  attrac- 
tion of  mutual  fitness  they  wend  their  way  to  the  same 
spot,  above  the  world  and  alone  beneath  the  sky. 

Once  set  however  face  to  face,  they  cannot  fail  to 
find  each  other  out,  by  the  directing  instinct  of  inward 
wealth  and  inward  want.  Meeting  upon  that  height, 
with  disturbing  voices  and  deluding  sights  away,  and 
only  the  simplicity  of  God  between,  they  can  hide  the 
truth  from  one  another  and  from  themselves  no  more. 
Jesus  had  gone  up  from  the  populous  valleys  with  no 
view  to  look  on  any  eye  but  that  of  God,  or  breathe 
a  word,  except  of  prayer :  he  went,  because  there  the 
hills  shut  out  the  lower  world,  and  only  space  and 
silence  reigned :  he  went,  to  avoid  the  false  press  of 
human  admirations  and  satisfy  the  true  aspiring  of 
divine  want ;  not  to  distribute,  but  himself  to  taste, 


The  Bread  of  Life.  173 

the  blessed  bread  of  heavenly  communion.  But  when 
the  reverence  of  the  people  disappointed  him,  and 
they  went  out  afoot  from  all  the  cities  and  preoccupied 
the  mountain  grass,  he  was  moved  with  compassion, 
"  because  they  were  as  sheep  without  a  shepherd "  ; 
and  he  let  his  soul  descend  in  its  abundance  on  them, 
instead  of  laying  it  low  in  its  need  and  sorrow  before 
God.  Wondering,  it  may  be,  what  he  has  to  give, — 
having  retreated  thither  just  because  he  had  not 
enough  for  himself, — yet  unable  to  withhold  his  supply, 
he  tried  how  far  his  store  would  go,  and  threw  among 
them  the  frugal  morsels  of  heavenly  truth  he  had 
collected  from  the  infinite  :  "he  began  to  teach  them 
many  things,"  and  continued  till  the  day  itself  was 
spent :  commencing  with  the  scant  estimates  of 
aspiration  and  humility,  he  found  what  would  suffice 
for  all.  So  it  ever  is  with  the  influence  of  a  holy 
mind.  With  the  quickness  of  sympathy  and  pity,  the 
prophet's  soul  so  believes  in  others'  eternal  hunger 
as  to  take  no  scrupulous  measure  of  his  own  supply. 
Were  he  asked,  he  would  say,  "it  is  not  much,  and 
hither  I  came  that  it  might  become  more  "  ;  but  called 
out  to  make  the  most  of  what  he  has,  he  finds  a 
miracle  of  bounty ;  for  not  one  among  thousands  goes 
empty  away.  In  all  the  higher  gifts  of  the  spirit, — 
in  the  graces  of  a  pure,  devout,  and  loving  nature, 
in  a  simple  and  holy  faith  that  takes  lonely  walks  with 
God, — there  is  this  marvellous  and  blessed  paradox : 


1 74  The  Bread  of  Life. 

they  are  the  most  absolutely  inalienable,  yet  the  most 
freely  communicable  of  all  treasures.  Nothing  is  so 
strictly  private,  so  characteristically  personal,  as  the 
temper  of  a  mind  lifted  above  earthly  delusions  and 
filled  with  a  divine  and  all-reconciling  light.  Its  trust, 
its  hope,  its  vision,  live  in  it,  it  knows  not  how  :  it  can 
tell  them,  but  can  show  no  path  to  them ;  can  sing 
them  out  in  hymns,  but  not  demonstrate  them  in 
problems ;  knows  them  to  be  first-hand  truth,  cut 
off  from  second-hand  approach.  Yet  so  far  is  Religion 
from  being,  on  this  account,  a  purely  individual  thing, 
— a  reserved  account  between  each  worshipper  and 
God,  that  it  cannot  even  live  at  all  upon  these  terms  : 
as  well  might  you  try  to  condense  the  lightning  into  a 
chamber-lamp  to  shine  for  you  and  your  little  tasks 
alone  :  it  exists  only  by  flashing  from  heaven  to  earth, 
from  cloud  to  cloud,  down  on  the  sea,  up  from  the 
western  to  the  northern  sky.  Divine  faith  is  the 
most  diffusive  and  kindling  of  all  things.  Kept  as  a 
private  store,  it  wastes  away  and  perishes ;  it  becomes 
so  meagre  that  you  can  feed  upon  it  no  more  :  you 
yield  to  a  worse  temptation  than  befell  your  leader  in 
the  desert,  and  turn  the  bread  of  life  into  a  stone. 
No  one,  I  suppose,  ever  deeply  believes,  or  even 
thoroughly  disbelieves,  alone  and  by  himself.  He 
cannot  dispense  with  others'  sympathy;  he  listens 
for  what  they  say  of  these  great  things :  he  looks  into 
their  eyes  :  he  wonders  about  their  thoughts  :  he  waits 


The  Bread  of  Life.  175 

till  they  give  a  sign  ;  and  not  till  they  hint  his  secret 
feeling,  does  he  dare  to  think  it  right.  If  none  ever 
confirmed  the  leaning  of  his  affections,  he  would  sus- 
pect it  was  only  a  distortion  in  himself;  and  would 
be  ashamed  to  bow  down  and  kneel,  were  there  no 
bended  head  but  his.  No !  faith  is  no  individual 
property,  to  be  shut  up  in  the  closet  of  personal 
silence ;  it  is  a  thing  of  Catholic  consent ;  the  ultimate 
element  in  which  our  common  human  soul  exists  and 
which  spans  the  interval  between  it  and  God ;  the 
spiritual  atmosphere  in  which  the  vibrations  flowing 
from  the  tones  of  truth  and  love  are  propagated  from 
mind  to  mind,  from  region  to  region,  from  time  into 
eternity.  Faith  is  not  less  an  intercommunion  and 
mutual  confession  of  souls  with  each  other,  than  of 
all  with  the  Father  of  spirits.  The  condition  of  its 
vivid  existence  is,  the  profound  consciousness  of  com- 
mon wants  and  common  aspirings,  and  the  presence 
of  some  clear  and  faithful  heart  inspired  to  express 
and  interpret  them.  Where  no  such  earnest  want 
is  felt,  where  it  is  suppressed  by  the  ascendency  of 
sense  and  the  indulgence  of  ease,  to  the  neglect  of 
the  higher  demands  of  every  noble  nature,  the  possi- 
bilities of  religion  are  crushed  out.  To  minds  in  this 
state  it  seems  as  if  there  were  nothing  in  it ;  and  if 
Jesus  had  had  with  him  only  a  company  of  well-fed 
and  self-satisfied  Pharisees,  assuredly  there  would 
have  been  no  miracle,  but  only  a  repudiated  basket 


176  The  Bread  of  Life. 

of  scanty  loaves  and  small  fishes.  Let  any  man  only 
be  satisfied,  and  God  himself  can  find  him  no  repast. 
But  Christ  relied  on  the  natural  hunger  of  honest 
hearts,  and  trusted  to  the  yearning  soul  and  multiply- 
ing grace  to  make  what  he  had  suffice.  And  lo  !  the 
answer  to  his  prayer  is  the  great  continuous  miracle 
of  Christianity  itself; — millions  from  every  height  of 
history  testifying  unto  this  day,  that  they  in  their  time 
have  been  divinely  fed  1 


XIV. 

®nfeiurfmi 


Is.  xlii.  16. 

"  I  will  bring  the  blind  by  a  way  that  they  knew  not :  I  will  lead  them 
in  paths  they  have  not  known.  I  will  make  darkness  light  before  them 
and  crooked  things  straight." 

THEKE  is  undoubtedly  a  sense  in  which  all  faith  is 
"blind."  Science  steps  only  where  she  clearly  sees; 
faith  can  dispense  with  seeing.  Science  boasts  of  her 
prevision  ;  faith  can  advance  into  the  dark.  Science  is 
proud  of  her  power  to  lead  the  order  of  events ;  faith 
gives  the  hand  and  is  thankful  to  be  led.  If  the  whole 
of  life  were  distinct  as  a  diagram  before  us  and  mamge- 
able  as  a  machine ;  if  we  could  command  its  issues  and 
measure  out  its  years ;  if,  by  our  own  skilled  choice,  we 
could  determine  our  health,  our  genius,  our  family,  our 
lot ;  if,  further,  each  passing  age  of  the  world  could  lay 
out  the  next  and  foresee  the  future  as  it  reads  the  past ; 
we  should  have  attained  the  Elysium  of  science  and 
found  the  "  Happy  Islands "  of  civilized  ambition. 

N 


178  The  Unknown  Paths. 

But  in  the  literature  of  such  a  spot  would  be  no  poetry, 
in  its  music  no  hymn,  in  its  architecture  no  cloister,  in 
its  voices  no  prayer  :  amid  the  staring  daylight,  no  altar 
lamp  would  be  trimmed  to  keep  the  watch ;  and,  in  the 
hard  elastic  air,  no  ear  would  listen  for  the  faint  steps 
of  any  Divine  visitant.  The  reality  of  God  would  be 
still  there,  as  the  stars  hang  over  us  no  less  at  mid-day 
than  by  night ;  but  our  vision  would  not  suspect  him, 
his  deep  would  be  a  dazzling  blank ;  and  for  relief  the 
eye  would  drop  back  and  rest  on  the  near  fields  where 
the  plough  is  moving  and  on  the  striped  sea,  and  the 
outline  of  the  beach  and  hills.  The  scene  of  our  own 
surveying,  the  work  of  our  own  tillage,  would  lie  as  an 
empire  beneath  us  and  detain  us  from  any  apprehension 
of  a  higher  authority  beyond. 

It  is  ever  the  ambition  of  men  to  walk  by  sight :  it 
is  the  method  of  God  to  lead  them  as  the  blind  by  a 
way  that  they  know  not.  They  naturally  try  to  diminish 
the  amount  of  guess-work  in  their  life,  and  to  make 
sure  of  the  grounds  of  action  in  whatever  they  under- 
take. To  take  nothing  on  trust, — to  fasten  the  thread 
of  every  enterprise  on  fixed  laws  of  nature, — to  venture 
into  no  field  that  is  unexplored,  to  fill  up  no  blank 
with  images  of  thought,  but  turn  away  from  the  invisible 
because  it  is  not  visible  : — constitute  their  maxims  of 
highest  prudence.  Carry  out  this  principle  to  its 
extreme  consequences,  let  it  become  a  universal  rule  of 
living ;  and  it  lands  us  in  a  mere  secular  materialism. 


The  Unknown  Paths.  179 

Why  trouble  ourselves,  it  suggests,  with  anything 
beyond  this  world  ?  Who  can  tell  us  anything  about 
it  ?  Here  we  are,  in  a  sphere  of  which  we  know  some- 
thing, abounding  with  remediable  evils  and  unrealized 
possibilities  of  good ;  in  the  midst  of  men  like  our- 
selves, to  whom  we  cannot  fail  to  be  a  blessing  or  a 
curse.  Let  us  hold  to  the  work  which  we  understand ; 
make  ourselves  and  our  neighbours  what  is  fitting  and 
worthy  here,  and  leave  the  hereafter  to  take  care  of 
itself.  With  model  cottages,  well-drained  towns,  uni- 
versal instruction  and  cheap  recreations,  protected  by 
just  laws  and  free  institutions,  we  shall  make  the  most 
of  the  world  we  have ;  and  do  better  than  by  sighing 
after  one  that  we  have  not.  Dealing  with  the  alphabet, 
with  the  account-book,  with  the  laws  of  health  and  the 
arts  of  skill,  we  know  what  we  are  about,  and  cannot 
fail  to  grow  cleverer,  richer,  stronger,  and  to  leave  the 
earth  more  habitable  than  we  found  it.  But  when  we 
propose  to  operate  on  a  future,  whose  conditions  are  un- 
seen, and  to  shape  what  is  given  us  by  that  which  is  as 
yet  withheld,  what  is  this  but  to  sacrifice  the  more  real 
to  the  less,  and  to  vest  in  our  ignorance  the  casting  vote 
against  our  knowledge  ?  By  appeal  to  considerations  of 
this  kind,  men  justify  a  total  disregard  of  their  diviner 
relations  and  encourage  in  themselves  the  purely  secular 
taste  which  refuses  to  draw  on  faith  for  the  sources 
either  of  wisdom  or  of  charity. 

Nor  are  they  altogether  wrong.     Whoever  wants  to 

N  2 


1 80  The  Unknown  Paths. 

find  the  proper  thing  to  do  and  how  best  to  do  it  must 
look  about  him  and  gather  it  from  the  visible  scene  in 
which  his  lot  is  cast ;  and  if,  instead,  he  fixes  his  eye 
beyond,  and  reckons  his  task  backward  from  what  he 
imagines  there,  he  may  think  a  penance  more  sacred 
than  plain  justice,  and  a  sacrament  higher  than  a 
charity.  All  the  matter  of  our  human  work  must  no 
doubt  be  determined  by  the  actual  relations  in  which 
we  stand  today, — by  our  necessities,  our  opportunities, 
our  powers.  What  a  man  can  do  best  is  the  true  task 
for  him ;  what  his  neighbours  and  his  age  want  most 
should  prescribe  the  form  of  his  self-sacrifice.  Now  is 
the  time,  and  here  is  the  world,  committed  lo  our  trust ; 
and  any  form  of  activity  that  looks  another  way  in 
neglect  of  their  pressing  appeals,  may  well  be  suspected 
as  an  evasion  or  a  romance.  If,  therefore,  any  one 
comes  to  us  and,  under  pretext  of  sanctity,  disparages 
the  business  of  our  working  days ;  if,  as  his  condition  of 
anything  divine,  he  wants  from  us  something  else  than 
to  drive  the  plough,  to  navigate  the  ship,  to  order  the 
house,  to  teach  the  child,  to  help  the  weak ; — if,  in  our 
labour  to  remove  every  canker  from  the  life  of  men,  he 
sees  nothing  to  disprove  our  being  aliens  from  God; 
then  we  may  justly  assert  the  claims  of  our  common 
human  world,  and  defy  him  to  fetch  anything  diviner 
from  the  skies.  No  slight  or  scorn  is  to  be  endured 
towards  the  duties  which  God  has  made  ready  for  our 
hand;  nor  is  eternity  to  be  railed  off  from  time, 


The  Unknown  Paths.  181 

as  if  that  were  the  high  altar  and  this  the   profane 
street. 

But  does  it  follow  that,  because  our  business  is  with 
the  present,  we  go  astray  when  we  trust  and  meditate 
the  future  ? — that,  since  we  have  to  deal  with  the  visible 
and  finite,  all  affection  is  misplaced  on  the  invisible  and 
infinite  ? — that,  unless  we  are  surrendered,  heart  and 
soul,  to  the  temporal  claims  of  human  life,  we  shall  but 
wander  from  our  true  end  ?  Not  in  the  least.  This  is 
indeed  the  inference  drawn  by  superficial  men,  who 
persuade  themselves  that  dreams  of  religion  are  the 
great  hindrance  to  the  real  amelioration  of  the  world. 
But  its  utter  falsehood  is  attested  by  the  whole  course 
of  human  and  especially  of  Christian  history ;  which 
rather  proclaims,  that,  if  you  would  improve  this  world, 
you  must  have  the  hearts  of  men  set  upon  another ;  if 
you  would  give  any  grandeur  to  life,  you  must  pale  it 
beneath  the  splendour  of  an  hereafter ;  if  you  would 
prevent  the  waste  of  industry,  the  contempt  of  moral 
economy,  the  indifference  to  the  lesser  humanities,  you 
must  train  the  soul  to  a  worship  that  goes  immeasurably 
beyond  them.  There  is  not  a  secular  reform  in  the 
whole  development  of  modern  civilization  which  (if  it  is 
more  than  mechanical)  has  not  drawn  its  inspiration 
from  a  religious  principle.  Infirmaries  for  the  body 
have  sprung  out  of  pity  to  the  soul;  schools  for  the 
letter,  that  free  way  may  be  opened  to  the  spirit ;  sani- 
tary laws,  that  the  diviner  elements  of  human  nature 


1 82  The  Unknown  Paths. 

may  not  become  incredible  and  hopeless  from  their  foul 
environment.  Who  would  ever  lift  a  voice  for  the  slave, 
that  looked  no  further  than  his  face  ?  or  build  a  reform- 
atory for  the  culprit  child,  if  he  saw  nothing  but  the 
slouching  gait  and  thievish  eye  ?  Nay  what  impulse 
would  even  science  itself  have  had,  if  sustained  only  by 
the  material  utilities  ?  what  inspiring  zeal,  but  for  that 
secret  wonder  which  feels  the  universe  to  be  sacred  and 
is  a  virtual  thirst  for  God  ? 

I  know  it  sounds  like  paradox  to  say  that  the  more 
you  magnify  the  present,  the  less  you  can  make  of  it ; 
and  that,  if  you  exalt  man  to  be  highest  of  all,  you  will 
reduce  him  to  the  meanest.  Yet  is  it  undeniably  the 
thought  of  immortality  that  imparts  dignity  and  depth 
to  whatever  in  us  is  mortal :  and  were  we  not  fitted  for 
communion  with  God,  there  would  be  little  to  revolt  us 
in  the  vacant  mind,  the  unchastened  habit,  the  servile 
lot.  All  the  pathetic  appeals  and  reverent  usages  of 
life,  the  patient  love,  the  costly  pity,  lavished  on  sorrow 
and  infirmity,  all  the  graceful  ceremonial  of  the  affec- 
tions at  the  birth,  the  marriage,  and  the  funeral,  assume 
that  everywhere  more  is  than  seems ;  that  whatever 
happens  has  holier  meanings  than  we  can  tell ;  that 
the  characters  written  on  the  screen  are  flung  out  by 
light  behind.  Take  away  the  divine  symbolism  from 
our  material  existence,  and  let  it  stand  only  for  what 
it  can  make  good  on  its  own  account,  and  what  is 
there  to  redeem  it  from  selfishness  and  insignificance  ? 


The  Unknown  Paths.  183 

The  home  sinks  into  a  house,  the  meal  into  a  mess,  the 
grave  into  a  pit :  honour  and  veracity  are  appreciated 
chiefly  as  instruments  of  trade  ;  purity  and  temperance, 
as  necessities  of  health ;  justice,  as  the  condition  of 
social  equilibrium  ;  mercy,  as  the  price  of  a  quiet  time. 
Does  this  literal  aspect  really  satisfy  you  ?  Does  it  give 
any  adequate  account  of  your  natural  feeling  towards 
these  several  elements  of  life  ?  If  this  were  all,  would 
they  stir  you  with  such  passion  of  love,  of  awe,  of 
admiration,  as  sometimes  carries  you  off  your  feet? 
No ;  we  are  not  made  upon  this  pattern ;  and  in  our 
composition  are  colours  mingled  which  are  native  to  no 
earthly  clay.  In  every  good  man  there  are  affections, 
moral  impulses,  aspirations,  far  more  intense  and  deep 
than  would  accord  with  any  secular  proportions;  and 
he  instantly  becomes  aware  of  this,  if  he  falls  into 
unsympathising  society,  where  he  is  put  upon  his  self- 
defence.  As  soon  as  he  tries  to  justify  an  enthusiasm, 
however  true,  and  casts  about  for  visible  and  definite 
grounds  on  which  to  rest  it,  he  is  conscious  of  weaken- 
ing it  by  the  argument  designed  to  give  it  strength  ;  he 
feels  that  it  has  rights  of  its  own  beyond  the  reach  of 
all  his  words ;  he  is  hurt  that  his  advocacy,  vainly 
struggling  to  speak  for  it,  has  but  spoiled  the  charm 
with  which  it  speaks  for  itself.  Let  any  one  endeavour, 
upon  a  mind  of  hard,  clear  surface,  to  infiltrate  some 
moral  conviction  to  which  it  has  hitherto  been  imper- 
vious ;  and  he  will  find  how  little  he  can  open  the  living 


184  The  Unknown  Paths. 

pores  of  conscience  by  showering  down  pleas  of  reason 
and  interest  that  turn  to  dust  ere  they  alight. 

What  then  do  we  gather  from  such  experience? 
That  the  purest  inspirations  of  men  have  other  grounds 
than  our  secular  life  presents,  and  would  lose  their 
justification,  were  there  nothing  else;  that  it  is  they, 
nevertheless,  that  have  led,  and  must  ever  lead,  every 
worthy  enterprise  by  which  the  world  is  ennobled  and 
adorned ;  that,  therefore,  did  we  cease  to  trust  them, 
did  we  let  the  world  rule  them  in  place  of  their  claim- 
ing to  rule  the  world,  the  very  springs  of  improvement 
would  decay ;  the  progress  we  admire  would  turn  to 
retrogression  ;  and  the  present  life,  for  which  we  make 
the  costly  sacrifice, — the  finite  plot,  reserved  for  such 
careful  culture  on  condition  of  being  screened  from  the 
infinite  dews, — would  become  a  waste  of  fallen  foliage 
and  rotting  fruits. 

In  this  respect,  as  in  so  many  others,  does  God  lead 
"the  blind  by  a  way  that  they  know  not."  He  realizes 
other  ends  than  they  contemplate  ;  and  the  ends  which 
they  contemplate  he  achieves  by  other  means  than 
theirs.  Ever  since  the  gospel  was  first  preached,  of 
Christ  the  risen,  his  disciples  have  set  their  affections 
on  things  above,  and  held  this  world  in  relatively  light 
esteem  :  yet  the  heaven  they  sought  remains  as  it  was, 
and  the  earth  they  despised  is  enriched  and  glorified. 
Were  we  to  contrive  a  way  of  improving  this  life,  we 
should  set  men  to  think  of  nothing  else  :  yet  God  con- 


The  Unknown  Paths.  185 

tradicts  this  ruinous  device,  and  reaches  the  end  by 
drawing  men  away  from  it,  and  pre-engaging  them  with 
a  higher.  It  is  the  great  principle  and  mystery  of  all 
his  Providence :  to  reach  the  upper  light,  we  must 
follow  blind  affections ;  and  to  realize  the  lower  kind 
of  good,  we  must  forget  it.  The  astronomer,  in  search 
of  a  missing  star,  looks  away  from  the  field  in  which  it 
lies,  and  by  side-light  it  steals  into  his  eye ;  and  thus 
the  Christian,  with  vision  directly  fixed  on  one  region, 
seizes  the  brilliants  of  another.  While  we  are  intent 
on  divine  things,  God  accomplishes  the  human.  We 
are  always  planning  how  we  may  govern  and  mould  the 
world  according  to  our  will :  but  he  has  made  us  sus- 
ceptible of  affections  more  powerful  than  our  will, — 
passions  beneath  us  that  deliver  us  captive  to  Satan, — 
aspirations  above  us  that  lift  us  to  Christ.  These  it  is 
that  surprise  and  disappoint  our  calculations,  and  snatch 
us  off  to  ends  other  than  our  own.  These  it  is  that  so 
often  seem  to  deny  the  race  to  the  swift  and  the  battle 
to  the  strong.  These  it  is  by  which  God  rules  the 
world  and  leads  us  in  a  path  we  have  not  known. 
These  are  the  trembling  strings  of  our  nature  on  which 
his  Spirit  has  but  to  breathe  and  play,  to  change  the 
rhythm  of  history  and  deepen  the  music  of  humanity. 

While  this  remains  the  constitution  of  the  moral 
world,  it  will  defy  our  boastful  predictions,  slip  through 
the  fingers  of  rulers  and  diplomatists,  and  the  Eternal 
Father  will  reserve  the  times  and  seasons  in  his  own 


1 86  The  Unknown  Paths. 

hand.  It  is  of  the  very  essence  of  these  deep  faiths 
and  affections  through  which  he  appeals  to  us  and  lives 
in  us,  to  produce  the  most  astonishing  and  incalculable 
results.  When  Christianity  hegan  to  spread  through 
the  cities  of  the  empire,  it  was  pronounced  an  "  un- 
social superstition,"  and  was  supposed  to  threaten  the 
dissolution  of  all  human  bonds.  The  disciples  with- 
drew from  the  resorts  of  gaiety  and  ambition,  and 
looked  with  passionless  and  neutral  eye  on  every  game 
in  which  others  lost  or  won  their  life,  their  all.  The 
Master  seemed  to  let  go  his  rights,  and  abdicate  his 
pride  ;  for  he  would  take  of  the  bread  broken  by  his 
bondsman's  hand,  and  chant  "  Amen  "  to  his  impas- 
sioned prayer.  The  Slave  emerged  from  all  that  was 
servile,  and  walked  as  a  man  set  free  by  a  divine  cap- 
tivity. The  "Woman,  repelling  the  approach  of  the 
frivolous  and  vain,  betrayed  a  deeper  life ;  and  by  a 
certain  queenly  dignity  recalled  the  matronly  images 
of  better  days,  though  without  the  matron's  patrician 
pedigree,  and  patrician  scorn.  No  doubt,  a  new  feeling 
had  taken  possession  of  the  little  flock  scattered  over 
that  mighty  world ;  a  feeling  which  in  one  sense  could 
not  but  have  a  levelling  effect  on  the  inequalities  of 
men ;  viz.  the  consciousness  of  each  one's  personal 
responsibility  to  a  Holy  God,  and  immortal  relation  to 
the  self-sacrifice  of  Christ.  Nothing  certainly  can  so 
sanctify  the  individual,  and  lift  him  into  integral  im- 
portance, as  this  sense  of  lonely,  secret,  eternal  inter- 


The  Unknown  Paths.  187 

communion  opened  between  the  soul  of  each  and  the 
Spirit  of  all.  Yet  what  has  been  its  working  in  human 
life  ?  Has  it  separated  each  man  from  his  fellow,  and 
planted  him  in  an  insular  region  of  his  own  ?  Has  it 
rendered  Society  impossible,  and  pulverised  the  moral 
fabric  into  human  atoms  ?  On  the  contrary,  the 
Christian  individuality  has  created  the  intensest  social 
cohesion  ;  and  of  all  the  combinations  of  this  world, 
the  churches  of  Christendom  have  presented  the 
examples  of  greatest  tenacity  and  profoundest  faithful- 
ness. Nothing  else  has  so  conquered  the  egotisms  and 
exorcised  the  selfishness  of  men,  and  kindled  in  them 
the  living  enthusiasm  from  which  self-sacrifice  must 
spring.  No  machinery  of  party,  no  sectional  interests, 
no  compact  organization,  has  ever  bound,  or  will  ever 
bind,  a  fabric  of  human  elements,  like  the  power  of 
Christian  reverence  and  Christian  love.  Thinking  of 
no  union,  planning  no  framework  of  incorporation,  the 
true  disciples  find  themselves  in  mutual  relations  of 
unspeakable  sympathy,  from  the  deep  intentness  of 
each  separate  eye  on  a  heaven  and  a  God  overarching 
all.  The  profoundest  union  sprang  direct  from  a 
spiritual  individuality.  These  Christians  contemplated 
no  such  thing  as  a  Christendom :  they  only  sought  to 
take  the  next  step  truly  on  the  way  to  their  everlasting 
Zion  :  but,  putting  themselves  into  the  hand  of  an 
unfailing  Guide,  they,  like  all  that  will  trust  him,  were 
led  in  paths  they  had  not  known;  and  the  blindness 


1 88  The  Unknown  Paths. 

to  them  was  turned  into  light  for  the  world.  His 
greatest  things  are  ever  born  of  their  own  opposites ; 
the  highest  energy  emerges  from  the  lowest  self- 
surrender  ;  secular  progress,  from  spiritual  aims ;  social 
^cohesion,  from  lonely  dignity  of  soul. 

It  is  the  same  in  all  memorable  times.  If  the 
greatest  crises  of  history  are  full  of  surprises,  it  is 
because  the  Providence  of  God  betakes  itself  to  other 
channels  than  the  elaborative  will  of  man.  For  the 
control  of  events  and  the  governance  of  the  world  ice 
resort  to  what  in  truth  is  our  only  leverage, — the 
dominant  wish,  the  collective  purpose,  of  our  com- 
munity. In  stirring  up  and  organizing  this,  we  cast 
out  from  it,  in  order  to  arm  it  with  its  greatest  power, 
all  that  is  special  to  any  section  of  the  whole, — all  that 
is  too  high  for  mediocre  thought  and  level  feeling  ;  and 
obtain  for  our  end  a  general  support  by  reducing  it  to 
the  measure  of  general  apprehension  and  interest.  A 
vast  area  of  opinion  is  thus  secured  for  the  furtherance 
of  our  aims.  And  if  these  aims  should  also  be  ancient 
and  familiar,  conservative  of  what  exists  and  is  known 
rather  than  new  and  experimental,  they  win  the 
guarantee  of  long  time  as  well  as  large  range,  and 
would  seem  to  present  an  irresistible  front, — whether 
it  be  to  march  aggressively  forward  and  seize  the  next 
station  in  advance,  or  to  lie  defensively  intrenched  upon 
the  ground  and  sweep  all  the  approaches  of  assault. 
Yet,  with  all  our  resources,  there  is  that  behind  with 


The  Unknown  Paths.  189 

which  we  cannot  reckon.  Human  will,  in  order  to  have 
wide  extent  and  long  institution,  must  dispense  with 
high  elevation ;  you  cannot  keep  the  general  host  or 
the  linked  generations  of  mankind  on  the  strain  of  any 
rare  and  noble  vision ;  and  the  force  they  lend  you  is 
that  of  consolidated  mass  rather  than  of  keen  intensity. 
It  never  rises  into  the  light  which  catches  the  loftier 
minds  and  kindles  their  enthusiasm ;  and  on  these  it 
is  that  each  new  Divine  illumination  is  shed, — some 
greater  thought,  some  deeper  faith,  some  fresh  com- 
passion, which  carries  its  flash  into  waiting  hearts  and 
changes  for  them  the  whole  aspect  of  life.  The  in- 
spirations of  a  single  soul,  at  first  flung  into  the  winds 
without  an  echo,  find  their  way  ere  long  by  elective 
affinity  into  responsive  natures,  and,  creating  them 
anew,  send  them  also  forth  with  the  fire  of  prophecy : 
so  that  the  lonely  "  dreamer  "  comes  to  wield  a  power 
of  conversion  which  the  hugest  "Propagation  Society" 
may  have  reason  to  envy.  It  is  in  the  free  play  of 
these  surprises  of  insight  and  affection  that  the  world 
is  lifted  to  higher  stages,  and  led  in  paths  it  had  not 
known.  Seek  not  to  organize  these  revelations  of  indi- 
vidual minds.  Fix  them  by  consent  and  vote, — turn 
them  into  a  school, — and  their  ethereal  penetration  is 
gone ;  they  fold  their  wings  and  perish.  Let  them  fly 
as  the  wind  that  bloweth  where  it  listeth  ;  and  as  they 
impinge  on  this  and  that,  they  will  wake  up  consonant 
tones,  wherever  possible,  and  fill  the  measure  of  their 


The  Unknown  Paths. 

harmonies.  Let  your  own  heart  also  lie  for  ever  open 
to  their  claim :  expect  them  not ;  refuse  them  not ; 
only  guard  their  inward  springs  with  reverent  heed, — • 
the  secret  misgiving  of  customary  wrong, — the  dawning 
love  of  a  more  perfect  right, — the  incipient  glimpse  of 
purer  truth;  for  such  graces  are  harbingers  of  the 
Divine  approach.  Follow  them  simply,  when  they 
visit  you,  though  they  should  draw  you  from  the 
trodden  paths  and  cherished  plans  of  life.  Turn  not 
to  the  right  or  left  to  see  whether  others  are  on  the 
track :  for  the  call  of  God  must  be  submitted  to  no 
second  voice,  but  must  suffice  to  take  you  on  your 
course  alone.  And  then,  if  some  long-laboured  purpose 
should  pine  away  unrealized,  it  will  only  be  that  diviner 
issues  may  arise  instead :  if  His  way  is  hid  from  you 
even  when  your  feet  are  on  it,  it  is  only  that  he  may 
make  the  momentary  darkness  into  more  glorious  light 
before  you. 


XV. 

Jfmit*  anfr  %  fitfmtt*  m 


EOM.  viii.  19. 

"  The  earnest  expectation  of  the  creature  waiteth  for  the  manifestation 
of  the  sons  of  God." 

AMONG  the  deep  yet  neglected  hints  which  lie  beneath 
the  surface  of  Scripture,  there  is  none  more  searching 
than  the  distinction  here  assumed  between  the  "  crea- 
ture "  and  the  "  son  "  of  God.  The  "  creature  "  is 
simply  the  fabric  of  his  skill,  related  to  him  as  the 
texture  to  the  hand  that  weaves  it,  indebted  to  him  for 
its  existence,  carrying  in  itself  his  purpose,  but  only 
as  a  thing, — a  tool, — an  article, — in  the  outfit  of  his 
world.  The  "  son  "  is  the  partaker  of  his  essence,  the 
repeater  of  his  life,  related  to  him  as  the  child  whom 
the  parents  cannot  hinder  from  being  like  themselves  ; 
growing  up  therefore  into  his  image,  and  betraying, 
even  in  exile  and  servitude,  an  irrepressible  sympathy 
with  his  affections,  and  yearning  towards  him  as  the 


192  The  Finite  and  the  Infinite 

everlasting  home.  In  man,  both  these  characters  are 
united.  As  a  product  of  nature,  born  to  take  a  place 
and  pass  away  among  the  organisms  of  this  earth,  he 
is  a  creature  no  less  than  the  cattle  on  a  thousand  hills, 
and  God  is  his  Maker.  As  a  vehicle  of  something 
above  nature,  as  lifted  into  the  freedom  of  personal 
existence,  as  sharing  in  the  life  of  the  Eternal  Spirit, 
he  is  a  son  of  divine  lineage,  and  God  is  his  Father. 
Observe  how  the  apostle  Paul  regards  these  opposite 
features  in  our  nature,  and  connects  them  with  the 
person  and  the  life  of  Christ.  Each  of  the  two  cha- 
racters has  its  trace  within  us  and  makes  itself  felt  by 
desires  and  sufferings  of  its  own  :  the  consciousness  of 
the  natural,  ever  sinking  on  the  finite,  and  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  spiritual,  ever  rising  towards  the 
infinite,  coexist  and  wrestle  in  our  nature.  In  that 
pathetic  strife,  the  weight  of  self  and  sense  would 
have  borne  us  down,  would  even  have  erased  the  con- 
ception of  anything  beyond,  had  not  the  very  spirit  of 
our  Sonship  taken  human  form  in  Christ,  and  claimed 
us  by  the  appeal  of  his  divine  life,  his  sacrifice  of  death, 
his  conquest  of  the  grave.  Startled  by  that  perfect 
vision,  the  sleeping  ideals  wake  again  within  our  hearts : 
caught  up  into  the  current  of  his  filial  surrender,  we 
recover  our  affinity  and  cry,  "  Abba,  Father  !  "  and  as 
soon  as  we  have  courage  to  live  as  sons,  to  trust  the 
faint  longings  that  bear  us  homewards,  and  float  away 
whithersoever  they  lead  us,  we  find  a  sudden  witness  of 


In  Hiunan  Nature.  193 

hope  and  spring  of  power.  Not  that  we  escape  our 
lower  thraldom  at  once :  the  outward  oppression  of 
nature  weighs  upon  us  yet, — the  panting  breast,  the 
bleeding  feet,  the  dimness  on  the  way,  the  shadow  on 
the  mind.  But  there  was  darker  eclipse  than  this  on 
Calvary ;  and  that  we  have  seen  clear  off  into  an 
immortal  glory ;  and  with  the  conscious  foregleams  of 
the  Spirit  within  us,  we  can  wait,  through  the  time  of 
earnest  expectation,  for  the  manifestation,  still  in  reserve, 
of  our  sonship  to  God.  Not  risen  as  yet  from  the  out- 
ward cross  and  burden  of  humanity,  we  nevertheless 
bear  his  mark  upon  our  brow ;  and  carrying  the  holy 
secret  with  us  as  we  toil  along,  we  find  whatever  is 
grievous  sweetened  and  what  is  humbling  glorified. 

In  thus  associating  us  with  the  divineness  of  Christ, 
and  expanding  the  term  "  Son  of  God  "  from  a  Personal 
to  a  Human  designation,  does  the  apostle  speak  to  us 
in  an  unknown  tongue  ?  or  does  he  wake  some  faint 
response,  some  half-heard  solemn  tones,  as  from  im- 
measurably distant  corridors  ?  Are  there  any  real 
vestiges  in  our  humanity  of  something  transcending 
the  fabricated  creature, — of  some  living  relationship 
with  the  Parent-spirit, — some  real  communion  with  his 
holy  nature,  some  melting  of  our  finite  life  into  sym- 
pathy with  his  infinite  ?  Surely  the  depth  and  signifi- 
cance of  life  must  be  half  missed  by  those  who  do  not 
find  such  vestiges  in  all  the  higher  endowments  and 
experiences  of  our  being. 

o 


194  The  Finite  and  the  Infinite 

Look,  for  instance,  at  the  Intellectual  instinct ;  and 
consider  whether,  in  its  direction  and  its  range,  it  is 
just  what  you  would  expect  in  a  "  creature  "  planted  only 
amid  earthly  and  secular  relations  and  computed  to  be 
worked  out  in  threescore  years  and  ten  ?  What  is  it 
that  men  most  love  and  long  to  know  ?  If  you  see 
them  in  multitudes  hushed  in  eager  attention,  uncon- 
scious of  the  ground  beneath  their  feet,  and  lost  in  an 
ideal  world,  what  interest,  do  you  suppose,  thus  holds 
them  in  mid  air  ?  Is  it  some  truth  that  lies  nearest  to 
them  in  time  and  place,  and  is  most  in  contact  with 
their  lot  ? — the  arithmetic  which  will  help  them  to  buy 
and  sell  ?  the  sanitary  rules,  which  will  keep  them  clean 
and  wholesome  ? — the  economic  laws,  which  distribute 
the  produce  of  their  toil?  On  the  contrary,  these 
things,  with  everything  that  is  pursued  as  the  outfit  of 
an  art  or  livelihood,  are  looked  on  as  a  sort  of  drudgery 
and  learned  in  obedience  to  a  necessity ;  and  to  find 
these  very  topics  pursued  with  any  enthusiasm,  you 
must  usually  go  to  a  circle  of  enquirers  where  their 
interest  is  not  personal  and  practical.  The  true  secret 
thirst  of  the  mind  is  never  reached  by  offering  selected 
draughts  of  "  useful  knowledge "  :  the  dietary  of 
Prudence  may  adopt  and  recommend  them  :  but 
"Wonder  finds  them  dry  as  ashes  to  its  lips.  What  is 
learned  with  an  express  view  to  its  gainful  result  is 
spoiled,  by  this  dominating  purpose,  of  its  generous 
flavour,  and  is  scarcely  a  mental  enrichment  at  all. 


Ill  Human  Nature.  195 

It  may  be  skill :  it  may  be  capital :  it  may  be  power : 
but,  in  the  noblest  sense,  it  is  not  knowledge.  Scorning 
the  narrow  measure  of  individual  wants,  human  curio- 
sity flies  out, — and  with  wing  more  eager  as  the  air 
grows  stra'nge, — into  fields  remotest  from  the  home- 
steads of  personal  and  social  life.  To  go  forth  and  see 
where  the  stars  are  and  how  they  lie  ;  to  get  round  them 
and  dive  into  the  fountain  of  their  light ;  to  frustrate 
their  eternal  silence  and  make  them  tell  their  paths ; 
to  pass  from  station  to  station  and  gain  assurance  that 
there  is  no  end  to  their  geometry ;  and  then  to  drop 
back  on  the  grass-plot  of  this  world,  mentally  sublimed 
by  the  sense  of  physical  insignificance ;  has  ever  had  a 
solemn  charm  for  human  intelligence.  Nor  are  we  less 
subject  to  the  spell  of  incalculable  Time  than  of  im- 
measurable Space.  "What  is  it  that  rewards  the  geolo- 
gist for  his  laborious  penetration  into  the  earth's  crust, 
his  dim  gropings  among  archaic  forms,  and  all  the 
patient  steps  of  his  induction  ?  Mainly  this :  that 
he  elongates  the  pendulum  of  his  time-piece  till  it 
slackens  to  the  rate  of  races  and  the  organic  pulsations 
of  a  world ;  that  in  the  field  or  brow  beneath  his  feet 
he  reads  the  depositions  of  a  million  years  and  the 
denudations  of  a  million  more ;  and,  setting  aside  the 
seas  and  continents  and  even  atmosphere  of  today,  can 
ride  upon  the  glaciers  or  peer  through  the  tropic  steams 
or  face  the  grotesque  monsters  of  the  planet  destined 
to  be  ours.  How  is  it  that  the  intensest  interest  hangs 

o  2 


196  The  Finite  and  the  Infinite 

around  these  far-off  sciences  ? — that  we  cite  them  as 
among  the  greatest  triumphs  of  human  research  ? — 
what  concern  so  deep  can  we  have  with  lines  of  thought 
that  scarcely  keep  within  the  limits  of  the  finite  ?  why 
do  they  strike  in  upon  us  and  stir  us  in  the  very  seats 
of  intellectual  romance  ?  Tell  me  not  of  their  indirect 
utility,  though  it  is  indisputable  :  does  a  Herschel  live 
for  the  sake  of  the  Nautical  Almanack,  or  a  Murchison 
and  Lyell  for  the  sake  of  Californian  mines  ?  It  is 
because  we  love  to  be  spoken  to  in  tones  from  the 
borders  of  the  infinite,  and  feel  them  to  have  a  native 
sound.  Cariying  in  ourselves  secret  'relationships  with 
universal  space  and  unbeginning  time  through  Him 
that  fills  them  both  and  lives  in  us,  we  know  the 
tidings  which  come  furthest  from  them  to  be  nearest 
to  us :  they  remind  us  of  our  augustest  kindred :  they 
free  us  from  our  momentary  prison :  they  show  us  the 
white  sail,  they  breathe  on  us  with  the  very  wind,  that 
shall  take  us  out  of  exile.  Their  awful  fascination 
bespeaks  a  nature  mysteriously  blending  in  its  affections 
the  finite  and  the  infinite,  and  standing  on  the  confines 
of  both. 

The  same  mixed  character  is  still  more  evident  in 
the  constitution  of  the  human  Conscience.  Here  too 
we  are  well  furnished,  but  at  the  same  time  strangely 
oi-er-furnished,  for  our  immediate  work.  Moment  by 
moment,  the  way  of  right  is  never  left  in  the  dark : 
temptations  and  duties,  taken  one  by  one,  are  always 


In  Human  Nature. 

inwardly  known  for  what  they  are  :  definite  guidance  is 
ready  for  us,  which,  in  each  case,  it  is  quite  practicahle 
to  follow.  Yet,  though  eacJt  fidelity  is  possible  in 
detail,  it  would  seem  impossible  to  be  true  to  all :  to 
the  most  constant  and  devoted  mind  their  call  will 
sometimes  come  in  moments  of  deadened  affection  or 
of  weakened  will,  when  their  accents  cannot  pierce  the 
deafness  of  spiritual  sleep  ;  and  as  soon  as  the  waking 
hour  returns,  the  eye  opens  on  a  lapsed  opportunity, 
and  droops  in  shame.  "Who  but  the  dull  and  blind  is 
free  from  this  sad  burden  ?  What  face  is  always  up- 
lifted to  the  light  of  life,  and  never  darkened  by  the 
shadow  of  death  ?  Is  there  one  of  us  to  whom  the 
pure  law  of  Christ,  so  lovely  to  see,  so  deep  and 
musical  to  hear,  lies  realized  in  the  past  ?  or,  does  it 
yet  look  down  on  us  from  the  future,  through  sad  and 
heavenly  eyes,  as  a  distant  "  Counsel  of  perfection," 
and  still  call  us,  after  all  these  years,  "  Come  unto  me, 
ye  heavy  laden,  and  I  will  give  you  rest  "  ?  Were  the 
human  Conscience,  like  human  Prudence,  the  mere 
product  of  experience ;  were  it  the  reflection  of  the 
world's  opinion ;  were  it  given  only  for  our  temporal 
guidance  without  significance  beyond;  why  should  we 
not  get  rid  of  our  sins  as  we  do  of  our  mistakes, — 
commit  them  and  have  done  with  them, — and  let  the 
Dead  Past  bury  its  dead, — and  leave  no  ghost  behind  ? 
This  is  actually  the  approved  wisdom  of  hard  and 
driving  men  whose  ethics  are  but  instruments  of  ex- 


*S\ 

198  The  Finite  and  the  Infinite 

ternal  work.  But  where  there  is  a  deeper  insight, 
where  the  outer  doing  is  looked  on  as  the  symbol  of 
the  inner  being,  where  affection,  character,  will,  have 
any  life  and  drama  of  their  own,  this  discharge  of 
old  compunctions,  this  cheerful  erasure  of  bankrupt 
accounts,  is  quite  impossible.  Only  when  evil  is  re- 
garded as  a  transitory  mishap,  can  it  be  thus  forgot : 
once  let  the  consciousness  awake  that  it  is  disloyalty  to 
the  Spirit  of  eternal  Holiness,  and  there  is  in  this  a 
conservative  power  which  will  forbid  its  awful  shadow  to 
depart.  And  hence,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  it  is  not 
the  guilty  that  know  the  most  of  guilt :  it  is  the  pure, 
the  lofty,  the  faithful,  that  are  for  ever  haunted  by  the 
sense  of  sin,  and  are  compelled  by  it  to  throw  them- 
selves upon  a  love  they  never  doubt  yet  cannot  claim. 
To  thoughtless  observers  of  human  nature  this  always 
seems  the  paradox  of  piety; — that  none  burst  into 
such  passionate  confessions  as  those  who  apparently 
have  nothing  to  confess ;  that  the  more  faithful  they 
become,  the  less  assuredly  have  they  peace  with  them- 
selves ;  that  the  further  they  retreat  from  the  power  of 
evil,  the  more  does  its  sorrow  sit  upon  their  brow. 
Why  do  you  hear  from  a  Fenelon  words  of  humiliation 
that  never  escape  a  Richelieu  ?  why  are  the  prayers  of 
prophets  and  the  hymns  of  saintly  souls  so  pathetic  in 
their  penitence,  so  full  of  the  plaintive  music  of  baffled 
aspiration,  like  the  cry  of  some  bird  with  broken  wing  ? 
It  is  because  to  them  the  truly  infinite  nature  of  holi- 


In  Human  Nature.  199 

ness  has  revealed  itself,  and  reveals  itself  the  more,  the 
higher  they  rise ;  because  in  its  secret  breathings  to 
their  hearts  they  recognise,  not  any  romance  of  their 
own,  but  the  communing  Spirit  of  the  Living  God; 
because  they  can  no  more  measure  evil,  than  you  can 
measure  hurt  affection,  by  any  scale  of  external  magni- 
tude, but,  like  all  violated  love  and  honour,  by  the  inner 
intensity  of  its  unworthiness  and  the  sanctity  of  the 
personal  claims  which  it  insults.  And  the  more  they 
surrender  themselves  to  the  inspiration  which  calls 
them  upward  and  become  identified  with  the  infinite 
sympathies,  the  wider  grows  their  spiritual  horizon, 
and  the  deeper  their  yearning  for  the  everlasting  hills 
that  lie  folded  afar  in  visionary  light.  That  the  blind- 
ness of  conscience  shuts  us  up  in  finite  comfort,  while 
its  kindled  sight  throws  us  open  to  infinite  unrest 
and  precipitates  us  on  a  mingled  world  of  penitential 
shadows  and  brilliant  aspirations, — would  be  an  un- 
intelligible contradiction,  were  it  not  that  our  life  and 
nature  are  more  than  sentient,  more  than  rational, 
more  than  ethical ; — and  that  then  first  do  we  find  in 
what  a  universe  we  stand,  when  we  gain  its  spiritual 
key,  and  pass  the  veil  that  hides  us  from  the  Living 
God. 

But  if  this  be  the  meaning  of  our  sense  of  sin,  what 
hope,  you  will  say,  that  it  can  ever  leave  us?  If 
holiness  be  infinite,  and  we  are  not,  is  it  not  an  awful 
thing  to  have  the  susceptibilities,  without  the  powers,  of 


2OO  The  Finite  and  the  Infinite 

infinitude  ?  And  was  it  not  the  work  of  Christ  to  give 
us  rest  from  the  strife  and  sorrows  of  compunction  ? 
Yes  :  not  however  a  rest  within  ourselves,  as  if  we 
either  ceased  from  sin,  or  could  see  it  with  other  and 
less  saddened  eyes ;  but  a  rest  out  of  ourselves,  a  pure 
and  perfect  trust  in  Him  whose  spirit  draws  us  from 
before  and  whose  pity  supports  us  from  behind.  It  is 
an  unfaithful  attempt,  to  escape  from  the  burdens  of 
self-reproach  otherwise  than  by  completer  surrender. 
Shake  them  not  off :  ask  not  to  have  them  taken  away : 
crave  for  no  peace  which  they  deny :  go  with  them  all, 
go  as  you  are,  to  Him  of  whose  light  they  are  the 
shadow ;  and  say  to  him,  "  I  am  a  sinful  man,  0 
Lord :  in  my  short-comings,  whilst  I  live,  I  can  never 
acquiesce  ;  but,  whilst  thou  livest,  I  can  never  despair." 
This  is  the  condition  of  an  immortal  nature  within 
mortal  bounds,  of  the  "  son  "  blended  with  the  "  crea- 
ture "  of  God.  In  a  nature  like  ours  the  vital  beams 
of  the  divine  essence  must  ever  shoot  and  struggle  in 
their  gulf  of  darkness,  and  make  no  white  effulgence, 
but  break  into  the  colours  of  a  stormy  glory.  Do  the 
awful  splendours  terrify  rather  than  inspire  you  ? — fill 
you  with  personal  fear  lest  the  whip  of  lightnings  start 
forth  from  the  cloud  and  fling  its  lash  upon  your  guilt  ? 
Do  you  want  ease  and  self-content  on  any  terms  ?  You 
can  sink  back  into  the  "creature,"  and  stifle  the  sighs 
of  the  "  son "  of  God  within  you.  But  if  you  will 
slaim  your  divine  heritage,  if  you  will  take  the  type  of 


In  Hitman  Nature.  201 

being  which  it  gives  you,  you  must  be  satisfied,  now 
and  for  ever,  with  something  else  than  self-repose  :  you 
must  be  content  with  mourning  at  home  and  rest 
abroad :  you  must  so  love  God  as  to  be  willing  to 
resemble  him  in  all  except  his  joy ;  and  then  his 
answering  affection  will  be  more  to  you  than  all  you 
have  renounced,  and  give  you  an  unselfish  "peace  that 
passeth  understanding." 

On  every  side  then,  the  relation  of  our  life  to  the 
supernatural  which  penetrates  and  enfolds  it,  betrays 
itself  in  our  consciousness.  The  intellect,  which  seeks 
to  transcend  the  finite  in  space  and  time  and  truth ; 
the  conscience,  which  owns  the  infinite  in  duty  and 
stays  itself  on  the  infinite  in  love ;  indicate  the  scale 
of  our  affinities,  and  attest  a  nature  that  liveth  not 
by  bread  alone  but  by  every  Word  of  communion  with 
God.  Moulded  of  perishable  and  imperishable  ele- 
ments, we  sink  and  rise,  we  sleep  and  wake,  we  faint 
and  struggle  on  ;  toiling  outwardly  for  transitory  wants, 
pining  inwardly  with  everlasting  thirst.  Be  it  not  in 
blind  unconsciousness  that  we  carry  in  us  the  seal  of 
the  Eternal.  Shall  God's  Spirit  plead  with  us  every 
day,  and  never  reduce  us  to  a  sweet  and  holy  mind  ? 
Because  our  feet  are  in  the  dust,  shall  our  heart  never 
go  up  into  the  mountain  to  pray,  and  our  thought 
never  pace  the  heights  of  meditation  ?  Shall  the 
years  sweep  by  and  take  from  us  all  that  is  mortal, 
without  waking  the  immortal  life  within  us  from  the 


202         l  he  Finite  and  the  Infinite,  etc. 

winter  in  which  it  sleeps  ?  Shall  we  wait  to  die  into 
the  surprise  of  God,  instead  of  taking  his  dear  and 
solemn  converse  now  and  for  ever  ?  Shall  we  dream 
of  a  future  eternity,  and  be  blind  to  that  which 
surrounds  us  every  instant, — which  brings  its  judg- 
ments to  our  conscience,  its  present  God  to  our  trust, 
its  mighty  company  of  saints  to  our  affection  ?  Ah  ! 
let  the  film  of  the  carnal  mind  fall  from  our  eyes ; 
and  yielding  ourselves  to  be  led  by  the  Spirit  of  God, 
let  us  claim  our  divine  Sonship  and  enter  on  its 
glorious  liberty.  There  will  be  no  sadness  then  in 
the  flow  of  life  and  change  :  time  will  take  nothing 
but  our  delusions  away ;  will  enfold  us  in  a  warmer 
light  of  divine  affection  ;  and  clear  the  everlasting  air, 
till  we  see  even  as  we  are  seen. 


XYI. 

io  ftate, 


Ps.  Ixxxix.  47. 

"  Remember  how  short  my  time  is :  wherefore  hast  thou  made  all  men 
in  vain  ? " 

WHETHER  or  not  a  man  is  made  in  vain  depends 
however  very  little  on  his  allowance  of  time.  "  Long 
life  "  may  be  needful  to  "  satisfy  him," — to  prevent 
disappointment  of  a  natural  instinct  and  give  a  certain 
completeness  to  his  existence  on  the  personal  side  ; 
but  is  far  from  necessary  to  God's  purposes  in  creating 
him,  or  to  the  intensest  and  fullest  action  of  his  being 
on  the  sphere  into  which  he  is  born.  The  divinest 
life  that  ever  took  the  form  of  humanity, — the  life 
above  all  others  least  "  in  vain," — hung  upon  the  cross 
ere  half  our  proverbial  term  was  spent ;  and  with  a 
few  months  of  love  and  sorrow  profusely'  sowed  the 
whole  seed-field  of  human  history.  The  cravings  of 
ease  and  comfort  may  dictate  the  prayer  for  protracted 
freedom  from  disturbance :  the  passionate  cry  of 


2O4     Time  to  Nature,  God,  and  the  Soul. 

desolate  affection  may  protest  against  the  abrupt 
quenching  of  its  familiar  lights,  brilliant  and  unex- 
hausted still:  but,  by  the  measures  of  the  Spirit, 
moments  may  often  suffice  for  years;  and  many  a 
soul,  though  not  outwardly  stricken,  yet  inwardly 
weighed  down  by  the  cross  of  too  great  a  life,  is  so 
far  from  desiring  "  length  of  days,"  as  to  have  no 
lingerings  but  for  others'  sake,  and  to  stand  ever  eager 
for  the  vioce,  "  Lift  up  your  head,  for  your  redemption 
draweth  nigh  "  ! 

Nothing  indeed  is  more  wonderful  to  think  of  than 
the  different  values  of  Time  to  different  orders  of 
existence.  To  mere  physical  natures  it  is  nothing, 
except  the  element  that  contains  their  successions ; — 
the  element  that  is  always  there,  and  always  uni- 
form ;  the  empty  receptacle  of  their  changes ;  producing 
nothing,  destroying  nothing ;  the  mere  open  door  of 
all  possibilities.  The  heavens  and  the  earth  are 
insensible,  to  their  own  vicissitudes,  and  have  neither 
pride  nor  fear  at  their  longevity.  They  measure  time 
for  others,  but  know  nothing  of  it  themselves :  they 
move  in  order  to  render  its  march  perceptible,  but  are 
blind  and  deaf  to  the  rhythm  which  they  beat.  To 
the  rising  sun  it  is  nought  what  day  in  the  world's 
calendar  it  glorifies :  the  transit  of  the  stars  is  calm 
alike,  whether  they  look  down  on  the  young  Paradise 
or  on  the  trodden  latitudes  of  guilt  and  sorrow:  the 
clock  in  the  sick  chamber  does  not  stop  to  listen  to 


Time  to  Nature,  God,  and  the  Soul.    205 

the  parting  breath,  but  ticks  on,  whether  to  count  the 
pulses  of  life,  or  to  sharpen  the  silence  of  death.  The 
particular  objects  in  creation  have  indeed  their  period : 
-they  pass  through  various  stages  of  a  career,  all  lying 
between  a  beginning  and  an  end ;  and  if  you  come 
upon  them  to-morrow,  they  are  not  the  same  that  you 
would  find  them  to-day.  The  difference  however  is 
for  you  and  not  for  them  ;  and  is  lost  when  you  restore 
them  to  their  place  in  the  great  organism  of  nature. 
The  universe  as  a  whole  is  always  sure  to  be;  and 
to  its  life,  which  has  all  space  to  roam  in,  it  matters 
not  whether  the  pulsation  be  due  here  or  there.  To 
the  physical  elements,  history  is  nothing :  the  young  ' 
oak,  if  its  roots  be  only  fed,  is  indifferent,  whether 
its  sap  is  from  the  juices  of  the  new  earth,  or  drawn 
from  the  falling  foliage  of  ten  thousand  years;  and 
the  full  moon  would  as  soon  look  down  on  a  Geth- 
semane  as  on  an  Eden.  In  the  fields  of  creation  every 
hour  is  equally  full,  with  neither  more  nor  less  than 
what  is  due :  indeed  it  is  this  very  evenness  that 
makes  and  counts  the  hours  and  gives  them  equal 
length;  and  we  set  off  its  constancy  against  our 
contingent  and  passionate  existence,  because  assured 
that  we  can  rely  on  its  relentless  neutrality.  Nature, 
in  short,  as  a  phenomenon  in  time,  serves  only  to 
mark  it  for  higher  beings ;  and  neither  makes  it  nor 
minds  it.  Duration,  already  on  the  field,  does  but  use 
the  cycles  of  Nature  as  its  ministers  and  interpreters. 


206     Time  to  Nature,  God,  and  the  Soid. 

If  Nature  is  below  any  perception  of  time,  God,  at 
the  other  extremity  of  being,  is  above  it.  He  is  the 
great  "  I  Am" :  his  verbs  have  no  tenses:  his  expe- 
rience is  never  past ;  his  knowledge  never  future : 
with  him  nothing  fades  away  and  sets  :  nothing  dawns 
and  brings  surprise.  Whatever  enters  into  his  being 
is  not  phenomenal,  but  real ;  not  transient  and  finite, 
but  permanent  and  infinite.  Truth,  the  expression  of 
what  unchangeably  if, ;  beauty,  the  conception  of  a 
fixed  ideal ;  holiness,  the  love  of  voluntary  perfection  ; 
these,  which  meet  in  his  personality,  are  not  historical 
and  incidental,  but  unsuccessive  and  spiritual,  the 
ground-thought  of  the  universe  itself,  the  law  and 
life  that  underlie  the  course  and  determine  the  drift 
of  its  development.  He  is  the  essence  of  all  the 
eternities :  before  his  eye  the  accidents  of  being  fall 
away,  and  the  inner  significance  alone  is  present  to 
his  view.  Only  that  which  is  always  true  and  fair  and 
holy  belongs  to  him ;  not  learned  by  him  afterwards 
from  the  form  of  its  manifestation,  but  known  before- 
hand in  itself ;  not  read  off  from  the  face  of  the  world 
by  his  perceiving  eye,  but  created  into  the  transitory 
universe  by  his  everlasting  thought.  His  intellect 
is  not  like  ours,  that  climbs  upward  from  fact  to  law, 
from  law  to  cause,  from  cause  to  the  abiding  ground 
of  all ;  but,  inversely,  meditates  downwards  from 
its  own  infinite  essence  into  specific  and  multiform 
expression ;  and  out  of  its  still  ocean  volatilizes  the 


Time  to  Nature,  God,  and  the  Soul.     207 

clouds,  and  keeps  alive  the  running  waters,  of  all 
earthly  good.  For  him,  who  embraces  the  ages,  they 
can  bring  nothing,  and  take  nothing  away. 

God,  then,  includes  time  without  being  affected  by 
it,  and  time  includes  Nature  which  is  unaware  of  it. 
He  too  completely  transcends  it,  his  icorks  are  too 
profoundly  subject  to  it,  to  be  otherwise  than  indif- 
ferent to  its  lapse.  But  we  stand  at  an  intermediate 
point  and  bear  affinity  with  both  extremes.  We  are 
akin  to  nature,  inasmuch  as  we  are  born  and  grow 
and  die  :  we  are  akin  to  God,  as  we  bear  the  stamp 
of  living  thought,  and  wield  the  power  of  creative  will. 
As  natural  products,  we  pass  through  time  and  suffer 
all  its  seasonal  changes :  as  supernatural  souls,  time 
passes  through  us,  and  becomes  tributary  to  a  life 
beyond  change.  It  is  in  a  mixed  being  like  ours, — 
in  the  meeting  of  the  physical  and  the  spiritual,  the 
touch  of  the  divine  upon  the  human, — that  duration 
ceases  to  stand  and  begins  to  .flow ;  that  the  hours 
count  themselves  off  aloud,  and  mingle  with  grief  and 
joy,  and  ring  out  by  turns  the  chime  and  the  dirge. 
We  cannot  pretend  to  be  mere  organisms,  to  which 
each  period  comes  alike  ;  ready  to  bloom  in  the  spring 
or  wither  in  the  wintry  wind;  or  to  be  passive  and 
unconscious,  like  the  sea,  whether  glancing  in  the 
moonlight,  or  sweeping  wildly  under  the  darkened 
sky.  We  cannot  pretend  to  be  "  as  gods,"  lifted  above 
the  reach  of  change,  exempt  from  sleep  and  waking, 


208     Time  to  Nature,  God,  and  the  Soul. 

and  lost  in  constancy  of  light  and  love.  Life  has  its 
perspective  for  us ;  bright  forms  and  slanting  gleams 
and  soft  shadows  in  the  past ;  a  haze  not  without  its 
glory  in  the  future ;  both,  looked  at  with  a  sigh  from 
thorny  ways  and  wasting  heats  in  the  present.  la 
relation  to  lower  existence,  our  human  consciousness 
of  time  is  a  prerogative  :  in  comparison  with  God's 
life,  it  is  an  infirmity,  or  at  least  a  limitation.  And 
according  as  we  use  or  abuse  it,  we  may  verge  towards 
either  extreme,  sinking  ourselves  into  nature  or  merg- 
ing into  God.  Do  we  use  change,  or  does  change 
use  us?  Do  we  drift  into  the  currents  of  necessity, 
or  keep  the  open  sea,  where,  with  the  good  winds  of 
heaven,  a  course  may  yet  be  steered?  Do  we  sur- 
render the  eternal  in  us  to  the  temporal,  and  yield 
the  soul  to  the  seasonal  pressures  of  life  ?  Then  do 
we  go  over  to  the  side  of  mere  nature,  and  claim 
our  slave-lineage  with  pride.  Or  do  we  convert  the 
temporal  in  us  into  the  eternal,  and  appropriate  all 
change  and  loss  to  feed  imperishable  love  and  glorify 
divinest  truth  ?  Then  do  we  draw  nearer  unto  God 
and  humbly  own  our  heavenly  filiation. 

It  is  with  good  reason  that  we  are  accustomed  to  put 
a  high  estimate  upon  experience  ;  to  give  heed  to  men 
who  have  it ;  and  expect  from  them  counsels  rich  in 
wisdom.  But  experience,  in  any  high  and  comprehen- 
sive sense,  is  the  rarest,  as  it  is  the  choicest  of  human 
qualities.  More  must  go  to  make  it  than  we  are  apt  to 


Time  to  Nature,  God,  and  the  Soul.     209 

suppose ;  not  habit  and  opportunity  alone,  which  can 
only  give  a  narrow  dexterity  of  hand  or  mind ;  but  some 
breadth  of  faculty  to  seize  relations,  and  depth  of  con- 
science to  read  life  truly,  and  quickness  of  affection  to 
sympathise  with  it  largely ;  and  a  cultivated  reverence 
of  mind  to  know  its  own  ignorance  and  find  the  way 
to  others'  wisdom.  The  materials  and  occasions  of 
experience  may  often  abound ;  and  yet  may  remain 
without  moral  result,  for  want  of  the  living  mind  and 
moulding  love  to  elaborate  and  shape  them.  Some  men 
there  are  whom  no  lapse  of  time  seems  to  soften  or 
expand;  from  whom  whole  floods  of  experience  vail 
flow  off  and  leave  them  dry ;  who  pass  through  events, 
and  remember  them,  and  like  to  call  back  their  outward 
image  again,  but  are  just  the  same  as  if  the  events  had 
been  different ;  who  reproduce  in  age  the  very  senti- 
ments and  prejudices  they  had  looked  up  in  youth,  and 
gather  nothing  from  the  past  but  a  mood  ungenial  to 
the  present.  They  repeat  the  story  of  their  early  days, 
not  as  a  poem,  but  as  an  almanac ;  can  give  you  the 
dates  but  not  the  meaning  of  the  changes  they  have 
seen ;  and  of  the  men  they  have  admired  can  tell  as 
much  as  the  register  and  the  coffin-plate.  To  such 
natures,  case-hardened  against  the  elements,  time  and 
the  seasons  come  .in  vain :  winter  and  summer,  not  a 
crevice  opens  in  the  rock  where  a  green  thing  can  push 
its  root.  Wanting  susceptibility,  to  appropriate  what  is 
given  and  work  it  up  into  the  organism  of  the  personal 


2 1  o    Time  to  Nature,  God,  and  the  Soul. 

existence,  they  can  only  by  an  abuse  of  terms  be  said  to 
have  "  experience  "  at  all :  they  want  its  diviner  con- 
ditions, though  supplied  -with  its  natural  vicissitudes; 
and  were  life  to  come  over  again,  they  would  do  and  be 
essentially  the  same.  Nor  is  this  hardness  of  mind, 
this  resistance  to  the  solicitations  of  time,  at  alt  peculiar 
to  the  rough  and  working  world.  In  the  intellectual  as 
in  the  practical  sphere  of  human  affairs  the  same  fact 
may  be  observed.  To  some  minds  knowledge  itseli 
seems  to  come,  not  as  a  nutriment,  but  as  an  incrusta- 
tion :  they  take  it  up  and  keep  it,  yet  are  scarce  wiser 
than  before :  they  let  themselves  serve  as  mere  organs 
for  its  elaboration  ;  and  when  the  honeycomb  is  ready, 
the  insects  come  out  as  they  had  gone  in.  It  is  amazing 
to  find  how  few  there  are  whom  knowledge  enters  as 
living  truth,  and  moulds  to  higher  beauty ;  how  often  it 
proves  but  a  Satan's  promise  to  those  who  taste  the 
fruit,  "  Ye  shall  be  as  gods."  The  littleness  that  may 
stand  in  face  of  the  widest  field  of  thought,  the  in- 
sensibility that  hears  no  Saviour's  voice  when  tender 
griefs  stand  at  the  door  and  knock,  the  self-will  that  can 
hold  its  stiff  footing  and  deny  its  prayer  when  God  is 
waiting  for  the  surrendered  heart ;  too  clearly  show  how 
many,  of  all  that  are  born,  yet  remain  to  be  born  again. 
It  would  almost  seem  that,  for  different  souls,  there  are 
different  periods  for  opening,  and  different  rates  of 
ripening  ;  and  that  while  some  welcome  the  first  breath 
of  spring,  and  strike  their  eager  fibres  into  the  mellow 


Time  to  Nattire,  God,  and  the  Soul.    211 

soil,  others  never  in  this  world  burst  the  capsule  of  their 
self-enclosed  humanity;  or  at  least  make  only  such 
tardy  and  reluctant  growth  as  to  stint  the  glory  of 
God's  natural  year,  and  reserve  for  another  clime  its 
grace,  its  foliage,  an.d  its  fruit.  Not  always  however 
are  we  doomed  to  fear  that  the  heavenly  birth  is  thus 
delayed.  There  are  some  to  whom  the  tearful  atmo- 
sphere of  this  world  early  brings  the  dew  and  sprinkling 
of  regeneration  ;  and  to  whom,  thenceforth,  no  event  is 
simply  physical,  no  experience  chiefly  external ;  but  an 
inner  fire  takes  up  and  kindles  whatever  is  offered,  and 
is  sure  to  be  nurtured  by  it  into  a  purer  and  diviner 
flame.  To  such  souls  every  element  of  life  is  sacred, 
and  every  momentary  change  is  rich ;  and  the  transient 
brush  of  sunshine  that  but  touches  the  grass  and  flits 
away,  will  show  them  more  than  the  longest  and  the 
most  staring  summer-day  can  give  to  the  shrewd  open 
eye.  Whatever  happens  to  them  or  passes  before  them 
becomes  a  part  of  them  :  their  tablet  of  the  past  is  not 
the  memorandum-book  of  business  and  affairs,  but  the 
illuminated  calendar  of  the  affections,  where  the  names 
are  holy  and  the  days  are  bright.  The  legends  they 
have  to  tell  are  not  superficial  anecdotes  that  fools  can 
understand  as  well  as  wise ;  but  snatches  from  the  great 
drama  of  reality,  strophes  flung  out  from  its  chords  of 
joy  or  grief,  moving  and  significant  to  those  onlj  who 
know  it  as  a  whole.  "Where  there  is  in  the  soul  this 
living  mood  of  watchfulness  and  response,  it  needs  no 

P  2 


2 1 2     Time  to  Nature,  God,  and  the  Soul. 

large  knowledge  to  give  the  finest  wisdom,  no  length  of 
days  to  enrich  the  heart  with  the  deepest  experience. 
Let  the  mind  be  only  pure  and  tender  with  the  love  of 
God,  large  with  his  presence,  and  free  in  the  quietude 
of  faith,  and  its  faculties  move  upon  the  slightest  hint, 
and  find  more  in  an  ordinary  year  than  sharp-sightcd- 
ness  and  sound-headedness  alone  could  discern  from 
beneath  their  knitted  brows  in  half  a  century.  I  know 
not  indeed  which  is  the  more  marvellous ; — the  frequent 
ripeness  of  the  young,  where  their  nature  is  well 
directed,  in  moral  and  spiritual  wisdom ;  or  the  apparent 
failure,  equally  frequent,  of  the  longest  life  to  awaken 
the  most  elementary  sentiments  of  religion.  In  either 
case  we  learn  how  little  mere  Time  has  to  do  with  things 
divine ;  how,  when  we  keep  near  to  God,  the  smallest 
allowance  may  suffice ;  and,  when  we  quit  him  for  the 
mere  natural  life,  the  largest  is  of  no  avail. 

Indeed,  that  Time  is  no  measure  of  value  in  the 
deeper  concerns  of  our  humanity,  is  apparent  from  a 
comparison,  not  only  of  different  persons,  but  even  of 
different  parts  of  our  own  individual  experience.  No 
hour-glass,  no  diary,  can  estimate  for  you  the  "fulness 
of  time  " :  it  is  the  soul  that  fills  it :  if  the  soul  lie 
asleep,  it  is  not  filled  at  all ;  if  she  be  awake,  in  the 
vigils  of  suspense,  of  sorrow,  of  aspiration,  there  may  bo 
more  in  an  hour  than  you  can  find  in  a  dozen  empty  lives. 
As  it  is  with  place,  so  is  it  with  time.  Often  it  happens 
that  some  one  spot,  uncoveted  by  others,  visited  by  no 


Time  to  Nature,  God,  and  the  Soul.    213 

pilgrim  feet,  may  be  more  to  you  than  all  the  world 
besides  :  it  may  be  but  a  bit  of  meadow-land  with  a  path 
beneath  the  elms ;  or  an  old  house  that  looks  upon  a 
street ;  or  a  bench  in  a  plain  village  church.  But  if  it 
be  there  that  your  childish  steps  ran  free ;  if  through 
those  windows  you  looked  ere  the  tint  of  wonder  had 
yet  flown  ;  if  at  that  shrine  you  knelt  in  your  first  deep 
sorrow-;  if  shadowy  forms  surround  you  there  with 
benign  and  holy  looks,  and  tones  are  in  the  air  that 
you  alone  can  hear;  the  place  will  have  for  you  a 
sacredness  quite  unique  and  immeasurable ;  a  magni- 
tude of  interest  that  no  lines  of  longitude  can  define. 
In  like  manner  may  a  weight  truly  unlimited  be  con- 
densed into  a  speck  of  time.  In  Gethsemane  itself  it 
needed  but  three  cries  of  briefest  prayer,  and  the  most 
pathetic  crisis  had  passed  from  the  sublimest  of  his- 
tories. Less  pregnant,  and  yet  of  immeasurable  con- 
tents, was  the  point  of  suspense  for  the  Christian 
confessor,  while  the  Roman  tribunal  paused  on  the 
verdict — "  To  the  release,"  or, — "  To  the  lions"  !  And 
in  the  private  house  where,  as  you  gaze  up  to  the 
chamber  aloft,  the  unaccustomed  lamp,,  the  soft-flitting 
shadows  on  the  blind,  and  an  indescribable  lo.ok  of 
hushed  intensity  betray  the  vigils  over  some  life  quiver- 
ing on  the  verge,  what,  think  you,  would  you  learn 
from  thje  pale  watcher  of  those  fading  eyes,  if  you 
asked  her  how  much  she  lived  in  the  hour  ere  they 
closed?  The  patriot,  snatching  from  his  courier  the 


214     Time  to  Nature,  God,  and  the  Soul. 

news  of  the  decisive  battle  lost  or  won  ;  the  widow, 
when  her  son's  ship  has  foundared,  asking  at  the 
broker's  office  for  the  list  of  the  shipwrecked  and  the 
saved ; — these  can  tell  you, — or  rather  cannot  tell, — 
what  may  be  comprised  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye. 
Nor,  for  this  experience,  is  there  need  of  any  startling 
external  vicissitudes  ;  it  belongs  no  less  to  the  purely 
internal  story  of  the  mind.  As  Newton,  in  testing  his 
theory,  approached  the  end  of  his  calculations,  and 
foresaw  that  it  would  be  verified,  the  rush  of  thought 
became  too  great  for  even  his  tranquillity,  and  with 
trembling  hand  he  delivered  to  another  the  task  he 
could  not  complete  himself.  Such  a  burst  of  sudden 
discovery, — the  solution  of  a  life-long  problem, — comes 
charged  with  a  meaning  in  excess  of  human  strength. 
Nay,  even  the  simple  student,  who  discovers  nothing, 
but  only  finds  the  wise  whom  he  may  follow,  can  never 
forget  the  hour  when  first  he  felt  the  power  of  the  higher 
mind  that  wakened  up  his  nature  and  revealed  him  to 
himself ;  if  by  the  living  voice,  the  memory  of  its  tones 
will  make  all  others  seem  empty ;  if  by  the  silent  page, 
it  will  look  up  with  a  deep  and  tender  light  which 
brighter  genius  will  never  eclipse.  Still  more  marked 
are  the  nodal  points  of  the  spiritual  history;  when 
from  our  penitential  prayers  the  shell  of  custom  breaks 
away,  and  floods  the  heart  with  all  their  meaning ;  or 
when,  after  long  darkness  on  a  trackless  sea  of  doubt, 
the  cloud  passes  from  the  pole-star  of  our  life,  and 


Time  to  Nature,  God,  and  the  Soul.    215 

gives  us  our  true  way ;  or  when  we  are  caught  up  into 
self-forgetfulness  and  enter  on  the  freedom  of  a  sur- 
rendered will.  The  magnitude  of  these  moments, 
their  real  proportion  to  the  whole  story  of  our  days,  no 
dial -plate  can  show.  The  pendulum  may  beat  but 
once,  ere  all  be  over ;  yet  that  instant  may  carry  in  it 
the  burden  of  years.  For  the  higher  regions  of  our 
nature,  the  true  measures  of  time  are  found,  not,  as 
with  physical  changes,  in  any  ratio  of  traversed  arcs, 
but  in  the  relation  of  events  to  our  affections  ;  and  in  a 
focus,  which  is  only  a  point,  may  burn  a  light  of  the 
spirit  greater  than  you  can  find  diluted  through  indefi- 
nite wastes  of  dull  and  hazy  life. 

Magnitude  of  life  then  stands  not  in  mere  length  of 
days.  That  is  but  one  of  its  dimensions ;  and  only 
"  in  our  haste  "  can  we  protest,  when  it  is  abridged, 
that  God  has  "  created  us  in  vain."  It  is  not  larger 
time  that  we  want,  so  much  as  the  more  capacious  soul 
to  flow  through  every  pore  of  the  little  which  we  have. 
So  long  as  we  shrink  within  the  fence  of  selfish  ease, 
and  see  nothing,  feel  nothing,  think  nothing,  beyond 
the  drowsy  range  of  personal  routine,  our  lot  will  be  so 
empty,  that  no  amount  of  it  can  ever  seem  enough ; 
and  our  complaint  of  its  brevity  would  not  be  cured 
by  the  gift  of  centuries.  While  the  spirit  sleeps,  the 
longest  time-piece  will  be  running  down,  and  can  count 
nothing  but  its  own  lessening  distance  from  stoppage 
and  death.  But  to  the  insight  and  affections  of  a  mind 


2 1 6     Time  to  Nature,  God,  and  the  Soul. 

awake  there  is  no  end  to  the  plenitude  of  things ;  it 
overcharges  the  hours  that  try  to  give  its  reckoning. 
Shall  we  forget  in  what  a  world  we  have  our  place  ? 
Ere  our  pulse  heats  thrice,  the  neighbouring  air  vihrates 
with  the  cry  of  every  passion,  the  tones  of  every  sorrow, 
of  humanity;  and  sun  and  moon  look  down  on  the 
incidents  of  unnumbered  moving  dramas  ;  and  he  who 
dwells  in  this  air  with  susceptible  ear  and  looks  on  this 
stage  with  open  eye  may  well  lose  all  heed  for  his  own 
life,  while  it  is  multiplied  and  melted  by  sympathy  in  a 
thousand  others.  A  single  instant  of  the  Divine  Life, 
spread  over  all  that  is  simultaneous,  is  worth  an 
eternity  of  ours,  which  at  least  begins  by  taking  all 
things  one  by  one.  And  in  proportion  as  we  emerge 
from  this  childhood  of  the  mind,  and  claim  our  ap- 
proach towards  union  with  God,  will  the  contents  of 
our  experience  enrich  themselves,  and  its  area  correct 
its  evanescence ;  till  a  mere  moment  may  become  worth 
a  millennium  before  ;  and  the  Transient  may  be  to  the 
large  soul  more  than  the  Everlasting  to  the  little  :  and 
then  whether  our  Time  be  long  or  short  by  Sun  and 
Moon  may  well  remain  indifferent,  since  the  life  that 
is  beyond  time  and  nature  is  vivid  within  us. 


xvn. 


LUKE  vii.  47. 

"  I  say  unto  thee,  Her  sins,  which  are  many,  are  forgiven ;  for  she  loved 
much  :  but  to  whom  little  is  forgiven,  the  same  loveth  little." 

IN  order  to  appreciate  aright  the  sentiment  here  meant 
to  be  conveyed,  we  must,  I  suppose,  slightly  correct 
the  form  of  words,  and  restore  to  the  two  clauses  their 
due  balance  and  contrast :  '  Her  sins  are  forgiven,  for 
her  love  is  great ;  but  he  to  whom  little  is  forgiven, — it 
is  because  he  loveth  little.'  That  is  to  say,  there  is 
a  perfect  parity  of  movement  between  God's  receiving 
affection  and  our  trustful  advance ;  profuse  attachment 
on  our  part  being  met  by  free  reconciliation  on  his ; 
whilst  the  cautious  and  frugal  heart  scarcely  reduces 
its  estrangement  in  the  least.  In  this  great  lesson  lies 
the  whole  point  of  the  incident :  to  lead  on  to  this  are 
the  figures, — at  the  head  of  the  feast  and  at  the  feet  of 
Christ, — presented  in  such  elaborate  opposition; — the 
cold  politeness  of  the  Pharisee,  content  to  be  civil  to 


218  Forgiveness  to  Love. 

tho  Son  of  God ;  and  the  passionate  reverence  of  the 
woman,  who    forgets    the  restraints   of  usage  in   her 
gratitude  and  tears.     Tho  evident  intention  of  Jesus  is, 
to  pica  I  her  intense  devotcdncss  as  a  sufficient  ground 
for  Divine  forgiveness;  and  not,  as  the  historian  in- 
versely supposes,  to  account  for  her  attachment  by  a 
prior  act  of  pardon :  for  it  is  not  till  the  last  moment 
of  tho  scene  that  he  winds  up  with  tho  announcement 
"  Thy  sins  are  forgiven  " ;  and    silences   all  murmurs 
hy  again  referring  to  her  fervour  of  trust  as  the  reason 
of  her  release  ;    "  Thy  faith  hath  saved  thee ;  go  in 
poaco."     No  doubt,,  tho  same  tender  and  susceptible 
soul  that  wins  forgiveness  by  depth  of  love  will  also 
repay  it  with  devoted  gratitude  :  the  imploring  faith  at 
first,  and  tho  resulting  joy  at  last,  will  bo  of  the  same 
rich  tone  ;  and,  in  his  words  to  Simon,  Jesus  may  have 
touched  on  both  relations,  and  spoken  of  forgiveness 
as  at  once  the  answer  to  a  love  spontaneous  and  the 
awakoner  of  a  love  responsive ;  and  with  this  he  may 
have  contrasted  the  hopeless  case  of  the  insensible  and 
formal  mind,  which  for  want  of  love  goes  without  for- 
giveness, and,  uninellowed  by  forgiveness,  flows  down 
in  no  love.    And  this  douMe  turn  to  the  thought  may 
explain  the  evangelist's  wavering  and  confusion  between 
the  two  directions.    But  whoever  will  set  himself  at  a 
lo  distance  from  the  incident  and  look  at  its  character 
as  a  whole,  cannot  fail  to  seize  its  essential  spirit  in  this 
truth ;  that  in  heaven  there  is  mercy  for  the  reverent 


Fo;  <s  to  Lc  219 

niul  loving,  and  a  strict  account  for  tho  critical  and 

COlcl. 

I  \rhaps  tho  historian  would  have  Kept  this  lesson 
moro  clearly  in  his  eye,  had  ho  not  apparently  taken 
too  dark  a  view  of  tho  woman's  character,  :m<l  heeii 
misled  by  Christ's  words  about  her  "  wtniii  sins"  into 
tho  inference  that  sho  was  living  a  life  of  outuard 
shame.  The  appearance  of  such  a  person,  \\ith  atti- 
tudes of  such  vehement  enthusiasm,  in  the  dining- 
room  of  tho  fastidious . Simon,  would  present  a  manifest 
improbability.  And  we  are  relieved  of  tho  dilliculty  by 
tho  other  three  evangelists,*  who  relate  an  incident  HO 
similar  to  this  that  it  can  bo  nothing  elso  ;  an  incident 
in  which  tho  entertainer  is  still  Simon,  and  a  woman  in 
devoted  discipleship  expends  her  precious  spikenaid  en 
tho  Lord,  and  the  guests  find  fault  with  his  perm. 
of  the  act.  If  these  are  features  which  could  hardly 
occur  twice,  wo  must  suppose  the  same  t'acl,  to  ho 
the  common  base  of  all  tho  narratives,  and  must  uso 

tlirm  to  correct  and  sup|  Irmnit,  cadi  other.  \Vi>  thus 
Irani  from  tho  other  gospels  that  tho  scene  was  in 
Bethany,  and  from  the  fourth  evangel!;!,  that,  the 
woman  was  no  other  than  Mary  the  sister  of  La/anis. 
If  so,  it  is  no  wonder  that  her  act  is  regarded  l-y 
tho  narrators  as  tho  simple  expression  of  reverential 
homage,  apart  from  all  penitential  meaning;  and  that 
no  reference  is  made  to  any  sins  in  her  that  asked 
*  Mutt.  \\vi.  i;  1:1.  Mi,!,  xiv.  ::-:»  .lulu,  \ii.  1-8. 


22O  Forgiveness  to  Love. 

forgiveness.  By  taking  our  stand  at  a  mid-point 
between  the  two  accounts,  we  may  perhaps  discern  the 
truth  of  both.  To  the  outward  eye  of  the  spectators 
at  Bethany  there  would  appear  no  ground  for  contri- 
tion in  that  gentle  Mary  who  had  long  sought,  and  well 
knew  where  to  find,  "  the  one  thing  needful " ;  and  they 
would  see  nothing  in  her  demeanour  but  the  outpouring 
of  an  unsparing  veneration.  Yet  in  the  inner  relations 
of  that  susceptible  soul  might  there  not  have  been 
many  burdens  of  self-reproach, — many  grievous  failures 
and  transgressions  which  she  had  longed  to  confess,  and 
now  at  length  had  laid  at  his  feet  ?  Those  good  sisters, 
as  we  know,  were  not  always  quite  genial  together ;  and 
the  brisk  hand  and  the  tender  heart,  being  human  both, 
might  well  make  sins  for  themselves  and  sorrows  for 
each  other,  that  needed  the  eye  of  Christ  to  clear  them 
away.  But  as  this  would  be  all  among  themselves, — 
private  as  the  confessional, — any  words  of  re-assurance 
that  might  escape*  the  lips  of  Christ  would  fall  upon 
the  hearers  without  their  key;  and  an  expression  of 
forgiveness,  repeated  to  those  who  knew  nothing  of  the 
persons  or  the  scene,  might  be  misconstrued  to  imply 
that  she  to  whom  it  was  addressed  must  have  been  "  a 
sinner  "  in  human  sight  as  well  as  in  Divine.  Let  us, 
however,  who  know  that  it  was  Mary  of  Bethany,  not 
so  misunderstand  those  bitter  tears,  and  the  gracious 
words  that  dried  them  at  their  fountain-head.  "We 
cannot  penetrate  the  spiritual  confidences  which  so 


Forgiveness  to  Love.  221 

humbled  and  moved  her  at  the  feet  of  Christ.  But 
this  we  know  assuredly  ;  that  the  same  eager  suscepti- 
bility which  was  so  quick  to  choose  "  the  good  part  " 
and  follow  whither  the  heavenly  thirst  might  lead,  would 
also  cause  her  to  feel  as  if  "  her  sins  were  many  "  :  for 
the  ideal  wing  is  often  broken  against  the  barrier  of  the 
real :  the  holiest  light  in  the  upper  region  of  the  soul 
flings  the  deepest  shadow  on  the  ground;  and  the 
depth  of  contrition  is  proportioned  to  the  height  of 
aspiration.  Nor  let  us  dare  to  call  this  an  illusion : 
for  it  is  the  most  certain  of  all  moral  laws,  that  every 
sin  brings  a  film  upon  the  inner  vision  and  sets  the 
soul  more  nearly  in  the  dark ;  that  in  the  heart  where 
evil  is  faintest,  there  is  it  best  known ;  and  that  none 
can  take  the  full  measure  of  its  shadow  but  He  that 
sees  it  from  the  Light  of  lights.  And  what,  accord- 
ingly, is  the  consolation  which  the  Saviour  offers  to  her 
contrition  ?  Does  he  treat  it  as  a  mistake  ?  does  he 
say,  she  need  not  distress  herself,  for  in  reality  there  is 
but  little  amiss,  and  Lazarus  and  Martha  declare  she  is 
the  best  creature  in  the  world?  On  the  contrary,  he 
respects  her  self-abasement ;  he  adopts  and  repeats  her 
remorseful  estimate ;  he  owns  the  sins  to  be  many, 
only  not  too  many  for  the  reconciling  love  of  God. 

Here  then  we  have  the  distinctest  contrast  between 
two  types  of  mind  and  character,  with  a  direct  verdict 
from  the  lips  of  Christ  on  their  relative  nearness  to  the 
heart  of  God.  There  is  the  apparently  correct  and 


222  Forgiveness  to  Love. 

unobjectionable  Simon,  honest  enough  to  risk  the 
imputation  of  discipleship  by  opening  his  house  to  the 
Galileans,  and  worthy  to  be  on  intimate  terms  with  the 
good  family  of  Bethany.  Evidently  sensitive  about  the 
proprieties,  and  vexed  that  he  cannot  avoid  "  a  scene," 
he  has  no  insight  below  the  surface, — no  sympathy 
with  the  hidden  source  of  those  silent  tears.  Cold  and 
even  in  himself,  he  has  an  aversion  to  the  language  of 
intense  affection,  and  likes  to  see  the  gloss  of  decorous 
moderation  spread  over  all  things.  His  ethical  self- 
management  guards  the  balance  of  his  habits  and 
keeps  him  negatively  right  ;  and,  having  no  real 
appreciation  of  sin  or  sigh  for  inner  consecration,  he 
probably  finds  the  "  pleasures  of  a  good  conscience  " 
just  upon  his  level.  Though  self-righteousness  can 
never  be  without  a  touch  of  pride,  we  know  nothing 
against  his  morals,  his  charity,  or  his  outward  religion. 
One  single  feature, — and  that  a  want  and  not  an  enor- 
mity,— arrested  and  fixed  the  eye  of  Christ :  his  love 
ivas  little.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  the  devoted 
and  affectionate  Mary,  known  to  us  only  by  her  con- 
trition, aspiration,  and  reverence  ;  of  whom  we  can 
only  think  as  of  a  face  now  uplifted  and  receptive,  now 
downcast  and  in  tears.  Her  outer  life  remains  for  us 
in  the  dark :  we  can  only  see  that  that  passionate  inner 
nature  must  have  passed  through  many  a  strife,  and 
may  well  have  been  betrayed  into  many  a  fall.  We  can 
by  no  means  feel  sure  that  she  never  was  surprised  into 


Forgiveness  to  Love.  223 

the  sharp  and  bitter  word,  or  was  always  punctual  with 
the  outward  task  ;  that  she  did  not  miss  the  near  duty  in 
quest  of  a  far  wisdom  ;  that,  where  her  love  was  strong, 
no  golden  mist  ever  dimmed  her  clearness  of  eye  or 
purity  of  conscience.  But,  whatever  her  delusions  or 
sins,  they  were  not  those  of  a  dead  but  of  a  living 
heart :  they  had  no  canker  of  selfishness :  they  were 
the  weeds  of  a  vernal  nature,  so  green  as  scarce  to  be 
told  from  promised  flowers, — not  autumn  spawn,  grow- 
ing where  the  sap  is  gone  and  the  rot  begun.  The 
upper  springs  of  her  soul,  however  troubled  in  their 
later  flow,  were  pure  and  untainted  yet :  humility  and 
trust  had  not  ceased  to  be  habitual,  or  self-complacency 
to  be  impossible.  The  vision  of  a  higher  sanctity  stood 
ever  at  one  remove,  and  kept  alive  a  secret  light  within 
the  eye,  and  moulded  the  very  features  into  reverence. 
If  her  will  was  weak  and  knew  not  how  to  rule,  it  was 
not  stiff  with  pride,  but  could  resign  itself  and  serve. 
Sad  and  confused  as  may  be  the  accounts  of  such  a  one 
with  God,  there  is  an  open  hope, — a  source  of  power, — 
a  likeness  with  himself  yet  uneffaced, — so  long  as  the 
Love  is  great. 

The  emphatic  preference  which  Christ  evinces  for 
this  form  of  character  above  the  ethical  and  self-reliant 
is  no  accident,  exceptionally  appearing  in  this  passage 
of  his  life.  It  pervades  the  whole  expression  of  his 
mind.  He  would  not  let  this  same  Mary  be  withdrawn 
from  sitting  at  his  feet :  he  blessed  the  wondering  heart 


224  Forgiveness  to  Love. 

of  the  young  child :  he  told  how  the  voice  of  the  con- 
trite publican  reached  the  ear  of  God  :  he  opened  the 
Divine  arms  to  the  prodigal  returning  and  subdued :  he 
sorrowfully  saw  the  rich  youth  go  away,  who  had  obeyed 
the  commandment  without  joy,  yet  had  not  faith  to 
take  the  cross.  It  is  indeed  the  one  essential  charac- 
teristic of  his  religion, — that  which  distinguishes  the 
gospel  from  the  law,  from  natural  morals,  from  self- 
spun  philosophy, — that  it  insists  on  the  doctrine  of 
reconciliation  by  love.  To  teach  the  rewards  of  obe- 
dience may  be  simply  Deistic :  to  proclaim  pardon  on 
repentance  is  only  Jewish  :  to  announce  forgiveness  to 
affection  and  trust  is  distinctively  Christian.  Short  of 
this  truth  we  have  not  entered  on  our  discipleship. 
This  thought  it  is  which  makes  the  difference  between 
the  new  ages  and  the  old,  between  true  churches  and 
false,  between  Christian  and  Pagan  art,  between  a 
Magdalen  and  a  Cleopatra,  between  a  Saviour  and  a 
Nemesis.  And  if  the  consciousness  of  Christendom, 
after  passing  through  Paul  and  John,  through  Clement 
and  Augustine,  through  Tauler  and  Luther,  has  not 
brought  this  truth  home  to  our  hearts,  we  have  yet  to 
lay  ourselves  open  to  the  benignest  breath  of  a  regener- 
ated world. 

"  Her  sins  are  forgiven ;  for  she  loved  much  ": — does 
the  reason  seem  to  you  inadequate  to  the  result  ? 
Remember  what  Divine  forgiveness  is,  and  alone  can 
be.  It  is  not  a  rescinding  of  the  appointed  sufferings 


Forgiveness  to  Love.  225 

of  guilt.  It  is  not  a  treatment  of  moral  wrong  as 
though  it  were  moral  right,  or  only  neutral.  It  cannot 
alter  the  sinful  past,  or  relieve  it,  by  a  single  shade,  of 
God's  disapproval :  he  can  never  be  brought  to  see  it 
other  than  it  is.  But  the  act  which  is  evil  hi  itself  is 
also  an  offence  against  Him  who  identifies  his  will 
with  all  that  is  good.  And  of  this  personal  alienation 
forgiveness  is  the  removal.  Is  it  strange  that  it  should 
be  removed  by  personal  love,  and  not  removed  without 
it  ?  How  should  sympathy  and  communion  be  re- 
stored, while  the  offender's  face  is  averted  in  distrust  ? 
How  should  they  fail  to  be  restored,  when  the  inner 
discordance  has  now  ceased,  when  the  stain  on  the  past 
looks  alike  to  both,  and  the  same  loves  and  aversions 
render  the  human  and  the  Divine  mind  again  congenial  ? 
What  is  it  that  ever  separates  us  from  God  ?  It  is 
simply  the  unlikeness  of  our  minds  to  his  ; — their  low 
tastes  and  disproportioned  desires ; — their  pride  in  what 
is  nought  to  him,  their  indifference  to  what  is  all  in 
all; — their  devotion  to  the  perishable  self  amid  the 
flow  of  his  everlasting  love  ; — their  slight  of  the  truth 
he  has  so  magnificently  shown,  and  the  holiness  he  has 
yet  more  awfully  secreted  in  the  very  heart  of  things. 
We  throw  around  us  the  self-evolved  clouds  of  a  nature 
neglected  or  debased,  and  then  complain  that  his  beams 
are  hid  :  we  plunge  into  ever  deeper  shades,  and  marvel 
that  the  Sun  is  under  permanent  eclipse.  But  the 
light  of  his  countenance  is  steady  and  eternal ;  and  it 

Q 


226  Forgiveness  to  Love. 

is  ready  to  shine  in  again  upon  us,  whenever  affections 
go  forth  from  us  intense  enough  to  perforate  the  mist. 
Nay,  He  himself,  with  the  breath  that  bloweth  where  it 
listeth,  often  sweeps  mercifully  by,  and  makes  inlets 
for  gleaming  lights  and  tender  colours  not  our  own. 
To  remove  the  estrangement,  it  only  needs  that,  on 
such  invitation,  we  set  our  face  the  other  way,  and  look 
to  him  with  free  response  and  trust;  that  we  reflect 
him  instead  of  darkening  ourselves  ;  that  we  let  him 
show  us  our  delusions  as  they  really  are ;  and,  stripping 
away  reserve  and  self-enclosure,  pass  into  affectionate 
communion  with  him.  The  return  of  sympathy  is  the 
removal  of  ungenial  separation ;  and  he  that  is  not 
separated  is  forgiven. 

Thus  and  thus  only  is  the  personal  relation  which 
has  been  disturbed  by  sin  re-adjusted  and  rectified. 
As  for  the  outward  penalties  incurred,  they  yet  remain  ; 
and  it  would  be  a  thing  furthest  from  the  wish  of  a 
restored  and  purified  mind,  that  any  act  of  oblivion 
should  blot  them  out.  Nay,  were  they  not  already 
there,  provided  in  the  legislation  of  the  universe,  the 
regenerate  heart  would  never  rest  without  creating  and 
suffering  them,  self-imposed.  With  or  without  the 
contrite  love,  the  consequences  of  our  sin  have  to  be 
borne.  Only,  ivithout  it,  they  come  upon  us  as  dry 
and  unrelieved  suffering, — a  parching  fever  untended 
and  alone,  consuming  us  in  exile,  with  no  tender  looks 
hovering  near  us,  and  no  home  tones  floating  on  the 


Forgiveness  to  Love.  227 

ear.  With  it,  they  light  indeed  their  fires  within  us 
still;  hut  they  are  cooled  and  well-nigh  quenched  in 
the  joy  of  reconciliation  and  the  floods  of  living  sym- 
pathy. AYherever  there  is  a  true  thirst  for  God  and 
that  thirst  is  not  in  vain,  hell  itself  is  fresh  with  water- 
brooks,  and  so  bursts  into  green  as  to  be  hell  no  more. 

And  as  it  is  with  the  peace,  so  is  it  with  the  power, 
of  the  spirit  of  awakened  love.  We  are  helpless  and 
paralysed  without  it.  The  mere  regret  for  past  and 
irrevocable  wrong  only  gnaws  the  mind  with  unpro- 
ductive belf-contempt,  or  works  upon  a  feeble  prudence 
that  cannot  lift  itself  from  its  own  flat :  and  even  true 
shame  and  remorse,  while  only  retrospective  and  mel- 
lowed by  no  personal  trust  and  present  sympathy,  rather 
prostrate  than  inspire  the  soul.  They  are  the  needful 
weakness  by  which  we  are  brought  low  and  made  clear, 
in  preparation  for  the  access  of  a  higher  strength.  It 
is  only  in  the  guise  of  a  deep  love  that  that  higher 
strength  enters  to  possess  us.  It  is  only  when  the 
force  of  conscience  ceases  to  be  a  propulsion  in  the 
dark,  and  stands  before  us  transfigured  with  the  glory 
of  a  Divine  form, — only  when  it  is  discovered  to  be  no 
mere  part  of  ourselves,  but  .the  immediate  real  presence 
of  the  Holiest  of  all,  that  we  are  touched  and  caught 
up  by  its  inspiration.  Then  it  wins  to  itself  the  tran- 
scending power  of  a  personal  affection ;  and  the  spiritual 
impulse  and  the  deepest  love  fall  into  coalescence. 
Instead  of  distant  obedience  arises  near  communion : 

Q  2 


228  Forgiveness  to  Love. 

in  place  of  a  precarious  and  trembling  will,  toiling  on 
tlie  dust,  we  find  the  transporting  wing  of  aspiration, 
and  leave  detaining  weights  behind.  As  for  mere 
human  strength  and  self-reliance,  it  cannot  hold 
through  this  high  race.  Not  long  shall  even  young 
resolve  press  on  without  being  weary ;  and  the  youth- 
ful spirits  too  often  utterly  fall.  But  they  that,  with 
trustful  love,  "  wait  upon  the  Lord,  shall  renew  their 
strength  ";  "  they  shall  mount  up  on  wings  like  eagles ; 
they  shall  run  and  not  be  weary ;  they  shall  walk  and 
shall  not  faint." 


xvrn. 
£&  10  %  Chiton  of  %  f 


ACTS  iii.  25. 
"Ye  are  the  children  of  the  prophets." 

IT  is  an  old  problem,  to  determine  the  characters  which 
most  clearly  distinguish  man  from  the  other  tribes  that 
share  with  him  the  occupancy  of  this  world.  I  will 
venture  to  add  one  to  the  many  answers  it  has  received : 
he  can  tell  what  o'clock  it  is.  His  nature  indeed  has 
few  more  discriminating  symbols  than  that  small  instru- 
ment, the  watch.  Other  creatures  travel  down  the  path 
of  time :  but  he  alone  can  count  the  steps.  They  too 
are  liable  to  season  and  to  change  :  but  he  only  can  mark 
the  cycle  and  anticipate  the  end.  They  also  bear  within 
them  the  vestige  of  the  past,  and  can  dream  again  of 
some  old  sight  or  sound  :  but  in  him  alone,  from  know- 
ledge of  its  source,  is  it  ripened  into  memory.  They 
belong  to  duration  :  but  duration  rather  belongs  to  him  ; 
not  indeed  to  change  its  empty  form,  but  to  mark  its 
divisions,  to  glorify  its  spirit,  and  determine  its  contents. 


230    Life  to  the  Children  of  the  Prophets 

He  would  have  no  name  by  which  to  describe  the  present 
moment,  were  not  the  past  and  the  future  simulta- 
neously before  his  thought.  It  is  a  high  prerogative, — 
this  meeting  of  the  three  elements  in  his  mind  at  once : 
nor  does  he  often  appear  to  me  in  closer  affinity  to  the 
Divine  nature,  than  when  I  hear  the  church-clock 
beneath  the  midnight  sides, — man's  hour-bell  striking 
on  the  ear, — and  watch  God's  time-piece  of  stars  gliding 
before  the  eye. 

Yet  how  little  true  to  this  prerogative  does  he 
practically  seem  !  If  you  place  him  before  you  in 
idea,  as  the  only  known  being,  save  God,  who  can 
measure  the  flow  of  time,  and  discern  the  relation  of 
his  Now  to  a  heretofore  and  a  hereafter;  you  think 
his  position  august  and  sublime,  and  expect  a  nature 
widened  and  calmed  by  that  breadth  of  duration  which 
seems  to  claim  him.  But  if  you  turn  from  his  chro- 
nometer to  himself,  if  you  look  for  the  past  and  the 
future  in  his  own  mind,  extending  his  sympathy  and 
tranquillizing  his  passions,  the  solemnity  of  your 
expectation  is  sadly  disappointed  :  you  see  almost  the 
same  slavery  to  the  moment,  the  same  blindness  to  all 
beyond,  as  in  creatures  who  are  aware  of  nothing  else. 
He  seems  delivered  over  from  instant  to  instant,  like  a 
helpless  tradition  moulded  by  small  pressures  of  the 
time,  and  losing  permanent  truth  at  every  point.  He 
burns  away  with  self-consuming  care  in  the  running 
focus  of  the  present,  fusing  down  his  life  into  drops 


Life  to  the  Children  of  the  Prophets.   231 

that  no  man  cares  to  gather ;  and  shows  nothing  of  that 
large  lustre  of  the  soul  which  resembles  the  spacious 
and  unwasting  light  of  electric  sides.  Nay,  his  very 
privilege  of  seeing  fore  and  aft  is  corrupted  hy  him  into 
a  means  of  heating  up,  instead  of  cooling  down,  the 
interest  of  the  moment :  his  dexterity,  his  experience, 
his  power  of  anticipation,  are  freely  applied  to  deepen 
his  immediate  stake,  and  make  the  instant  game  more 
desperately  engaging  to  his  passions  ;•  but  not  to  give 
the  quiet  heart  and  steady  hand  of  one  who  frequents 
it  only  as  the  gymnastic  of  a  divine  skill,  and  is  un- 
dazzled  by  its  showy  prize.  Instead  of  abating  the 
vehemence  of  his  short-sighted  wishes  by  the  sense  of 
larger  and  more  enduring  good,  he  directly  imports  all 
the  resources  of  memory  and  the  fervours  of  hope  into 
his  momentary  desire,  and  thus  doubles  his  slavery 
instead  of  attaining  his  freedom. 

This  habit  of  living  for  the  moment  is,  even  in  its 
best  forms,  narrowing  to  the  mind  and  withering  to  the 
heart.  It  cannot  coexist  with  the  sense  of  God  upon 
the  soul.  It  makes  the  difference  between  the  blindness 
of  passion  and  the  long  sight  of  affection, — between  the 
evanescent  haste  of  impulse  and  the  permanent  aspira- 
tion of  enthusiasm, — between  the  heats  of  the  natural 
and  the  intensity  of  the  spiritual  man.  This  is  readily 
admitted  in  the  case  of  one  who  lives  for  imme- 
diate pleasure.  The  common  feeling  of  mankind  looks 
with  contemptuous  pity  at  his  inability  to  resist  the 


232     Life  to  the  Children  of  the  Prophets. 

bait  that  dances  before  his  eye, — his  fickle  purposes, 
changed  by  each  bright  colour  which  the  prism  of  life 
may  throw  upon  the  wall  of  thought, — his  feeble  cap- 
tivity to  stronger  wills, — his  quick  spirits  and  his  lin- 
gering repentances. 

Could  such  a  one  be  persuaded  to  change  immediate 
pleasure  for  immediate  interest,  it  would  be  more  difficult 
to  procure  his  condemnation  from  the  verdict  of  men  : 
for  the  inconsistency  which  most  offends  them  would  be 
replaced  by  a  steady  and  prudent  self-command.  Yet 
the  improvement,  though  fitting  him  for  the  competitions 
of  the  world,  may  leave  him  absolute  stranger  as  before 
to  the  love  and  life  of  God ;  nay,  may  even  be  the  sign 
of  a  more  hopeless  alienation  :  for  I  believe  there  is  no 
hell  so  far  from  God,  no  exile  so  total,  as  the  cares  of 
sordid  self-interest.  Under  that  spell  the  very  language 
of  recall  becomes  an  unintelligible  jargon,  and,  amid  the 
sleep  of  the  interpreting  soul,  is  taken  for  unmeaning 
cant.  There  are  men  voluntarily  delivered  over  to  the 
work  of  mere  livelihood  and  gain, — men  who,  without 
the  sad  necessities  and  redeeming  inspiration  of  affection, 
dwarf  their  whole  nature  to  the  scale  of  retail  trade, 
who,  instead  of  withstanding  by  a  noble  spirit  the  little- 
ness of  life,  fall  into  it  with  glee  and  relish  ;  the  paradise 
of  whose  hopes  is  a  comfortable  business,  and  the  idol 
of  whose  admiration  is  the  shrewd  neighbour  sure  to 
make  his  fortune.  To  such  a  man  all  the  depth  and 
beauty  of  life  are  closed.  The  sweetest  relations  suggest 


Life  to  the  Children  of  the  Prophets.    233 

nothing  but  shapes  in  his  secular  affairs ;  his  daughters 
are  emblems  of  so  many  marriage  chances,  and  his  sons 
of  so  many  apprentice -fees ;  and  his  charities  and  his 
church,  an  investment  in  decent  reputation.  Friends, 
there  is  nothing  degrading  in  the  humblest  and  the 
hardest  fate  ;  nothing  much  nobler  in  this  world  than  a 
meek  true  soul  struggling  against  the  narrow  bounds  of 
the  sphere  assigned  it,  and  faithful  to  cherish  the  light 
of  God  in  the  inglorious  darkness  of  a  bitter  lot.  But 
to  find  the  smallness  of  affairs  a  relief  from  any  higher 
strain,  to  hug  the  degradation  and  make  ourselves  at 
home  with  it,  to  plead  it  in  excuse  for  the  unresisting 
meanness  of  our  nature,  to  preach  from  its  low  plat- 
form a  crusade  of  blind  unbelief  against  the  visions  of 
prophets  and  the  breathings  of  the  devout, — this  is  a 
direct  betrayal  of  the  post  of  life,  and  treason  against 
the  holy  Providence  of  all.  Whoever  fixes  himself  upon 
the  centre  of  mere  prudential  interest  forfeits  thereby 
his  title  to  speak,  because  his  power  to  judge,  of  anything 
divine  :  for  heaven  pays  small  respect  to  our  poor  taste 
for  plain  truths,  and  so  withdraws  from  the  earthly  eye 
the  "  deep  things  of  God,"  that  "  the  natural  man 
cannot  discern  them." 

Nay,  this  blindness  may  befall  a  far  worthier  class 
than  the  votaries  of  pleasure  or  of  interest :  it  is  the 
penalty  of  all  who  concentrate  themselves  upon  the 
present, — who  live  for  the  moment,  even  though  it 
be  the  momentary  Duty.  Conscience  also  has  its 


234    Life  to  tJie  Children  of  the  Prophets. 

narrowness ;  its  scrupulous,  microscopic  gaze,  that 
looks  for  the  animalcules  of  obligation  till  it  grows 
blind  to  the  stars  of  faith,  and  the  free  heaven  swims 
dizzily  before  it.  The  anxieties  of  the  merely  dutiful 
mind  show  that  there  is  yet  a  barrier  leaving  it  outside 
the  union  with  God.  Those  cautious  steps  betray  the 
deterring  fear,  and  are  unlike  the  free  movements  of  a 
confiding  love.  I  know  at  once  whose  steps  they  are  : 
they  belong  to  one  who  appreciates  religion  as  the 
means  of  good  morals,  instead  of  morals  as  the  germ 
and  condition  of  religion  ;  whose  very  faith  therefore  is 
a  worship  of  prohibition,  a  conservatism  of  limits,  an 
apprehension  of  the  escape  of  some  fugitive  desires ; 
and  can  never  fling  itself  in  pure  enthusiasm  and  with 
fearless  trust  upon  a  large  career  where  no  rule  can 
guide  it  but  only  love  impel.  The  small  scale  of  affec- 
tion in  these  honest  and  rigid  minds  shows  itself  in 
censorious  thoughts :  they  cannot  see  beyond  the  cir- 
cumference of  their  own  rules  :  they  have  no  sympathy 
for  other  types  of  life, — no  large  eye  for  good  if  God 
should  hide  it  under  strange  costume :  and  so,  as  the 
•world  will  grow  into  unexpected  shapes,  they  are 
amazed  at  the  perverseness  of  the  world ;  treating  it 
indeed  with  no  greater  rigour  than  they  would  severely 
apply  to  themselves ;  only  forgetting  that  the  Lord  of 
Omniscience  gathers  himself  not  into  their  centre,  but 
rather  calls  them  out  into  his  circumference.  In  short, 
the  soul  which  foregoes  its  privilege  of  spreading  itself 


Life  to  the  Children  of  the  Prophets.    235 

out  on  past  and  future,  and  lives  for  the  moment, 
whether  of  pleasure,  of  interest,  or  even  of  duty,  suffers 
a  dwindling  in  its  nature.  In  helpless  irritability,  in 
miserable  egotism,  in  ungenial  rigour,  in  uneven  spirits, 
does  the  exaggeration  of  the  present  betray  itself.  By 
continuance  in  it  a  man  inevitably  becomes  ever  smaller 
in  soul,  while,  by  losing  sight  more  and  more  of  any- 
thing beyond  him,  he  feels  as  though  he  were  greater ; 
till  at  length  he  becomes  incapable  of  learning,  of 
trusting,  of  looking  up  at  all ;  and  exhibits  all  the 
littleness  of  the  child,  only  without  the  child's  tender- 
ness and  faith.  Nor  is  this  result  at  all  prevented 
by  any  magnitude  in  the  mere  scale  of  a  man's 
outward  and  personal  life.  It  is  as  true  of  master 
as  of  man,  of  merchant  as  of  clerk.  Be  the  outline 
and  circumference  of  occupation  large  or  small,  the 
contents,  taken  one  by  one,  are  not  dissimilar;  and 
while  the  minds  that  penetrate  them  remain  alike,  the 
only  difference  will  be  between  a  taller  and  a  lower 
stature  of  the  same  type  of  character. 

There  are  times,  I  suppose,  to  every  thoughtful  man, 
when  the  impression  of  this  littleness  in  his  actual  life 
comes  upon  him  with  a  startling  force.  A  touch  of 
sorrow  which  wakes  the  faded  forms  of  old  affection, — a 
poet's  strain  at  which  some  high  enthusiasm  vibrates  in 
the  heart  again, — a  night  upon  the  mountain  or  the 
ocean  where  a  Presence  greater  than  the  whole  field  of 
worlds  is  felt  in  the  rush  of  the  waters  and  the  silence 


236    Life  to  the  Children  of  the  Prophets. 

of  the  air, — or  the  sight  of  some  secret  sufferer  who 
meekly  bears  a  cross  unknown  to  us, — surprises  us 
into  the  humbling  discovery,  that  we  have  been  dead  to 
the  sublimities  that  lie  as  a  cloud  of  glory  around  us 
and  within  us.  Something  deeper  than  the  senses 
show  or  the  hand  can  touch  gleams  upon  us  every- 
where,— an  expressiveness  behind  the  features  of  life 
and  nature  which  we  had  never  seen  before ;  and  scenes 
quite  often  looked  at  now  seem  to  look  at  us,  and 
with  the  living  light  of  a  Divine  eye.  Something  that 
was  eternal  we  had  always  supposed  that  there  must 
be ;  now  we  find  that  there  is  Some  One  who  is  eternal ; 
and  the  drawing  near  to  him,  the  penetration  to  him 
through  his  universe,  the  saying  of  a  true  word,  the  lifting 
of  a  clear  face,  to  him,  appears  to  have  a  meaning  we  did 
not  suspect.  Compared  with  this  meaning,  how  poor 
seems  all  that  we  had  taken  to  be  most  real !  how 
empty  the  contents  of  our  busiest  day,  too  troubled 
about  many  things  to  leave  any  opening  for  the  one 
thing  needful !  Yet  what  is  a  day,  but  a  sample  of  the 
eternity  in  which  we  are  and  are  to  be  ? — If  this 
arousing  of  the  soul  is  not  faithfully  followed  up,  habit 
will  reassert  its  power,  and  contradict  the  divine  call 
by  a  positive  relapse ;  and  an  utter  scepticism  of  every- 
thing infinite  will  ensue,  and  the  mind  will  look  back 
on  its  only  waking  experience  as  a  brilliant  dream. 
But  if,  by  perpetuity  in  the  change,  this  proves  to  be 
a  true  regenerative  hour,  the  opposite  effect  will  follow. 


Life  to  the  Children  of  the  Prophets.    237 

Finite  things  will  be  despised  and  disbelieved;  will 
suffer  vengeance  for  their  long  tyranny,  and  be  spurned 
as  mere  deceptive  shows ;  and  the  more  intense  their 
despotism  has  been,  the  more  thorough  will  be  the 
renunciation  of  their  sway.  "When  the  scales  first  fall 
from  the  eyes  of  one  who  has  been  living  for  the 
moment,  that  which  lies  before  his  astonished  view 
is  ths  eternal  depth  of  God,  towards  which  the  currents 
of  a  resistless  spirit  appear  to  draw  him.  If  he  have 
a  strong  impetuous  soul,  like  Augustine  or  Luther,  he 
plunges  in  and  loses  himself  in  quest  of  the  everlasting 
point  of  view.  The  conversions  of  such  minds  from 
the  life  for  the  moment  to  the  life  for  eternity  are  facts 
to  be  treated  with  a  hearty  reverence.  Nevertheless, 
the  sweep  at  once  from  egotism  to  God  is  too  vast  not 
to  bring  some  giddiness,  some  loss  of  equilibrium,  into 
a  nature  like  ours.  The  sudden  transfer  from  the 
exclusively  personal  point  to  the  exclusively  divine  is 
not  free  from  the  illusion  of  vehement  contrast.  Finite 
things  are  too  absolutely  quenched,  and  sink  away  from 
even  their  just  rights.  All  that  is  human  is  dwarfed 
and  slighted  ;  and  every  mild  and  gracious  light,  of 
natural  pity,  of  domestic  affection,  .of  cultivated  art, 
is  put  out  by  the  intense  splendours  of  the  beatific 
vision.  Hence,  periods  distinguished  by  a  rapid  burst 
of  religious  consciousness  have  rarely  been  unmarked 
by  wild  and  tragic  features,  by  a  life  deepening  into 
vivid  colours  and  shaping  itself  into  gigantic  forms.  A 


238    Life  to  the  Children  of  the  Prophets. 

taste  and  feeling  for  greatness  unsoftened  by  bsauty  has 
developed  itself.  The  immensity  of  the  divine  ends 
pursued  has  swallowed  up  the  scrupulous  care  of  con- 
science about  the  means  employed.  The  curbs  on 
human  passion,  the  respect  for  human  life,  the  rights 
of  human  thought,  have  given  way.  And  breathing 
in  a  region  of  transcendent  air,  men  have  lost  the 
gentleness  and  warmth  of  a  kindred  and  considerate 
heart.  The  new-born  soul,  carried  alofb  by  the  fiery 
steeds  of  praeternatural  affection,  is  apt  to  be  stripped, 
in  the  mighty  wind  of  its  ascent,  of  the  mantle  of  its 
humanities,  and  let  it  drop  on  less  glorious  prophets, 
still  toiling  on  the  level  of  this  world. 

Behold  then  the  opposite  dangers  between  which 
•we  stand.  He  who  lives  for  the  moment  never  finds 
his  soul  and  is  alien  from  God :  he  who  springs  out 
of  this  darkness  to  live  straightway  for  eternity  wins  a 
giddy  height  which  only  the  most  balanced  minds  can 
safely  hold,  and  whence  the  lesser  graces  and  charities 
are  apt  to  pass  out  of  sight.  Have  we  nothing  then  to 
mediate  for  us  between  these  two, — between  the  simply 
natural  and  the  simply  spiritual, — between  the  purely 
personal  and  the  absolutely  Divine  ?  Are  there  but  those 
two  foci  of  position  for  our  nature,  the  solid  darkness 
of  self,  and  the  ethereal  effulgence  of  God, — the  one 
blinding  from  its  gloom,  the  other  from  its  brilliancy  ? 
Far  from  it.  There  is  an  intermediate  realm,  or  rather 
an  interposed  path  spreading  from  the  one  to  the  other, 


Life  to  the  Children  of  the  Prophets.    239 

with  stages  of  sweet  rest  for  weary  souls,  and  many  a 
loving  help  on  the  way  from  earth  to  heaven.  For 
those  who  cannot  take  the  whole  distance  at  a  bound, 
God  has  prepared,  between  the  natural  and  the 
spiritual,  the  heroisms,  the  martyrdoms,  the  sancti- 
ties, of  History.  If  we  cannot  live  at  once  and  alone 
with  him,  we  may  at  least  live  with  those  who  have 
lived  with  him ;  and  find,  in  our  admiring  love  for 
their  purity,  their  truth,  their  goodness,  an  intercession 
with  his  pity  on  our  behalf.  To  study  the  lives,  to 
meditate  the  sorrows,  to  commune  with  the  thoughts,  of 
the  great  and  holy  men  and  women  of  this  rich  world, 
is  a  sacred  discipline  which  deserves  at  least  to  rank 
as  the  forecourt  of  the  temple  of  true  worship,  and  may 
train  the  tastes,  ere  we  pass  the  very  gate,  of  heaven. 
It  is  an  exercise  which  neither  permits  us  to  remain  in 
self-idolatry,  nor  yet  plunges  us  into  self-annihilation. 
It  strengthens  what  is  weak  in  our  souls  by  the 
sympathy  of  ages :  it  supports  us  against  the  derisive 
face  of  living  fools  by  the  sublime  gaze  of  whole  cen- 
turies of  the  wise  :  it  relieves  the  sense  cf  our  life's 
littleness  by  showing  us  the  possibility  of  greatness. 
Above  all,  it  corrects  and  inverts  our  delusive  estimates 
of  what  is  solid  and  powerful  in  this  world.  In  our 
own  individual  experience  we  are  ever  tempted  to  think 
nothing  real,  nothing  positive  and  practical,  except  our 
material  business,  the  visible  produce  of  our  pains,  the 
outward  administration  of  our  life  ;  while  the  inner  and 


240    Life  to  the  Children  of  the  Prophets. 

ideal  life  is  deemed  so  unsubstantial  a  dream  that  those 
who  apeak  of  it  are  supposed  to  be  beating  the  air. 
The  experience  of  nations  and  ages  reverses  this.  The 
glories  of  the  past  are  not  in  huge  trades,  or  fine  pro- 
perties, or  even  in  laws  and  rites  and  institutions  which 
in  their  day  kindled  the  passions  of  party  strife  :  these, 
chafed  into  dust  by  the  mouldering  hand  of  time,  suc- 
cessively fall  away  with  the  earthly  conditions  from 
which  they  come  ;  while  the  mere  impulses  of  expres- 
sion, through  which  affection  and  admiration  pour 
themselves  forth  and  heart  appeals  to  heart,  mould 
themselves  into  imperishable  Arts,  though  asking  only 
for  the  most  perishable  of  materials, — forms  and  tones, 
colour  and  language ;  and  precisely  the  most  ethereal 
and  interior  of  thoughts,  which  visit  us  only  in 
evanescent  gleams, — of  something  terrible  in  sin, 
of  something  infinite  in  duty,  of  a  possible  union 
with  God  through  love  and  a  mastery  of  life 
through  entire  surrender, — prove  the  most  perma- 
nent realities  in  history ;  constructing  themselves  into 
faiths  which  have  been  the  cradle  of  nations  and  the- 
divine  nurse  of  the  most  vivifying  individual  minds. 
The  ink  of  Virgil  on  its  thin  leaf  outlasts  the  Roman 
walls  and  aqueducts :  nay,  the  unwritten  words  of 
Homer  survive  the  cities  where  they  were  sung,  and 
are  our  only  guide  to  the  rivers  and  plains  which  he  has 
made  immortal,  but  w-hich  nature  and  history  could  not 
keep.  Of  nothing  does  the  aspect  change  more  with 


Life  to  the  Children  of  the  Prophets.    241 

time  than  of  that  wealth  and  station  for  which  such 
sacrifices  are  made.  Who  now  cares  for  all  that 
Kallias  had,  in  comparison  with  the  least  part  of  what 
Socrates  icas  ?  or  would  save  the  banking  credit  of  all 
the  Fuggers  at  the  cost  of  a  table-talk  of  Luther's? 
Who  would  envy  the  pontificate  of  Leo,  if  he  could 
have  the  pencil  of  Ikffaelle  ?  And  in  spiritual  things, 
when  they  steal  from  their  true  retreats  and  dare  to 
speak,  it  is  the  simplest  truth  and  love  that  are  surest 
to  endure ;  and  ages  that  can  no  longer  yield  the  heart 
to  the  ceremonial  of  St.  Peter's  or  Notre  Dame  or  West- 
minster, will  still  surrender  to  the  persuasive  piety  of  a 
St.  Francis,  a  Fenelon,  a  Leighton.  Next  to  the  judg- 
ments of  God  himself  are  the  estimates  of  the  human 
mind  exposed  to  the  long  tests  of  history.  And  the 
pure  insight  of  religion,  if  not  intuitively  present,  may 
be  reached  perhaps  by  a  silent  circuit  through  the  elite 
of  generations  gone. 

Shall  it  then  make  no  difference  to  us, — except  to 
our  accumulated  capital, — that  we  live  in  an  old  human 
world,  rich  in  the  memory  of  ancient  dynasties  of 
thought  ?  We  are  "  the  children  of  the  prophets  "  ; 
and  are  fond  of  owning  it  by  rebuilding  their  tombs 
or  raising  memorials  of  a  century's  gratitude  and 
honour.  Shall  the  record  of  their  genius  and  graces 
be  fixed  on  the  marble  or  the  bronze,  and  tell  no  story 
except  when  there  is  sunshine  to  show  it  and  an  eye 
to  read  it  ?  Shall  it  have  no  transcript  on  "  the  living 

•R 


242   Life  to  the  Children  of  the  Prophets. 

tables  of  the  heart,"  to  be  ever  with  us  and  gleam  by 
night  as  well  as  day  ?  We  forfeit  the  chief  source  of 
dignity  and  sweetness  in  life,  next  to  the  direct  com- 
munion with  God,  if  we  do  not  seek  converse  with  the 
greater  minds  that  have  left  their  vestiges  on  the  world. 
Rather  let  us  keep  a  constant  eye  upon  the  light  of 
their  spirits,  and  never  quit  our  hold  of  the  shadowy 
hands,  of  which  the  nearest  is  almost  at  our  door  and 
the  furthest  feels  the  touch  of  Christ  and  disappears  in 
the  effulgence  of  God.  If  it  is  not  given  us,  with  the 
inspired  apostle,  to  reach  "the  third  heaven"  in  the 
twinkling  of  an  eye,  or,  with  the  rapt  mystic,  to  spring 
aloft  on  the  wing  of  prayer  and  float  straight  into  the 
arms  of  the  Infinite  Love,  they  will  draw  our  feebler 
spirits  upward  by  insensible  attraction,  and  bring  us  to 
the  same  end  at  last.  This  blessed  dependence,  this 
holding  on  of  link  to  link,  of  soul  to  soul,  of  age  to 
age,  is  the  true  "  communion  of  saints,"  which  bridges 
the  waters  of  death,  and  embraces  its  opposite  banks 
in  one  City  of  God. 


XIX. 


PSALM  xii.  1. 
"  Help,  Lord;   for  the  godly  man  ceaseth." 

WITH  many  a  bright  child,  many  a  high-minded  youth, 
restive  under  Puritanical  guardianship,  it  would  seem, 
I  fear,  no  bad  news  that  "the  godly"  were  ceasing; 
and  his  suppressed  feeling  would  be  that  they  could 
very  well  be  spared.  For  the  phrase  has  become  ap- 
propriated to  a  type  of  character  far  from  lovely  in 
even  its  best  aspects,  and  so  adverse  to  natural  joy  and 
dreary  in  its  idea  of  perfectness  as  to  repel  all  large 
and  genial  minds.  It  is  the  standing  infatuation  of 
divines,  first  to  spoil  the  poetic  depth  of  religion  by 
reducing  its  speech  to  technical  use,  and  then  to  charge 
on  human  corruption  the  repugnance  which  the  dismal 
product  excites.  The  kind  of  person  to  whom  they 
would  award  the  epithet  "godly"  is  familiar  to  us  all; 
—  the  man  of  evangelical  piety,  whose  life  is  ruled 
by  gratitude  for  unmerited  salvation  and  desire  to 

R  2 


244  The  Godly  Man. 

rescue  others  from  the  perdition  which  he  has  escaped  ; 
who  can  glibly  say  the  creeds  without  a  pause  of  doubt, 
and  is  duly  shocked  with  the  superstition  that  adds  any- 
thing to  them  or  the  heresy  that  takes  anything  away  ; 
who  looks  on  his  Church  as  the  great  agency  by  which 
God  is  in  contact  with  the  world,  and  measures  by  its 
rule  all  men  and  things,  all  history,  all  life,  all  pro- 
gress ;  who  pours  his  gifts  into  its  treasury,  and  makes 
it  the  almoner  of  all  his  bounty.  That  a  character  of 
this  form  is  compatible  with  many  excellences, — nay,  is 
even  a  pledge  of  them, — we  need  not  deny :  but  the 
selection  is  narrow  and  peculiar ;  it  carries  with  it 
grave  deformities  and  faults  which  it  consecrates  as 
sanctities ;  and  it  omits,  as  if  profane,  many  human 
characteristics  which  must  for  ever  remain  objects  of 
admiration  and  trust. 

Even  apart  from  its  abuse  in  the  religious  dialect  of 
a  school,  the  word  "  godly  "  has  come  to  mean  some- 
thing vastly  more  limited  and  less  certainly  significant 
of  nobleness,  than  it  once  denoted.  It  marks  only  one 
special  aspect  of  character, — one  order  of  feelings  and 
habits, — viz.,  those  which  are  directed  towards  God. 
No  doubt  these  ought  to  carry  in  them  all  else  that  is 
pure  and  good,  and  to  refine  and  perfect  every  other 
side  of  the  moral  nature.  And  wherever  God  is  present 
to  the  thought  as  the  everlasting  life  of  beauty,  truth, 
and  goodness,  and  kindles  their  faint  authority  with 
the  glow  of  personal  affection,  there,  to  live  in  con- 


The  Godly  Man.  245 

scions  relations  with  him  will  sustain  the  whole  action 
of  the  soul  at  its  highest,  and  be  equivalent  to  right- 
eousness all  round;  and  secret  communion  with  him 
will  take  the  mind  to  the  very  well-spring  of  every 
better  love,  and  revive  the  aspirations  drooping  in  the 
heat  and  dust.  A  spirit  always  rightly  disposed  towards 
a  perfect  Being  can  neither  be  in  disorder  within  itself, 
nor  be  wrongly  disposed  towards  any  other.  But  then 
religious  susceptibility  is  often  keen,  where  the  con- 
ditions, intellectual  or  moral,  'of  so  manly  and  compre- 
hensive a  piety  are  wanting ;  and  a  worship  may  ba 
paid  which  sanctifies  the  discord  of  the  passions  and 
confirms  the  confusion  of  the  conscience.  And,  on  the 
other  hand,  there  are  secular  forms  of  character,  un- 
deniably high  and  noble,  which  seem  to  have  no 
sympathies  on  the  spiritual  side,  and  are  unconscious 
of  light  from  above.  It  would  be  a  monstrous  and  a 
monkish  rule  to  measure  men  in  our  time  by  their 
devotions  ;  to  admit  to  the  glory  of  godliness  every 
assured  intimate  of  heaven,  and  exclude  from  it  every 
one  from  whom  the  living  presence  of  the  Most  High 
is  hid. 

It  may  check  this  overbalance  of  our  estimates  on 
the  side  of  piety  to  remember  that  the  word  "godly" 
in  its  primitive  intent,  means  only  "  godlike."  It 
expresses,  not  the  personal  affections  which  have  God 
for  their  object,  but  the  characteristics  which  may  bring 
a  human  soul  into  resemblance  to  him.  To  the  strong 


246  The  Godly  Man. 

and  simple  builders  of  our  speech  he  was  a  godly 
man  who  drew  their  reverence,  not  whom  they  found 
constantly  expressing  his  own;  with  whom  they  felt 
themselves  in  the  presence  of  something  divine  ;  whom 
they  trusted  as  a  rock  of  righteousness ;  to  whose 
shelter  they  could  fly  in  every  storm  of  wrong.  Such 
a  one  they  would  doubtless  take  to  be  "  the  Friend  of 
God";  but  the  sign  of  it  to  them  was  not  in  his 
devotions  and  private  demeanour  towards  the  world 
above ;  rather  in  this,  that  he  stood  to  them  in  the 
place  of  God,  and  was  the  chosen  Organ  of  eternal 
Eight.  If,  with  this  clue,  we  seek  for  the  central 
essence  of  the  character,  we  shall  certainly  rot  rest 
with  the  pieties  exercised  in  conscious  worship.  For 
precisely  here  it  is  that  we  stand  on  purely  human 
ground,  and  are  disposed  of  by  affections  which  the 
Supreme  Spirit  (Jannot  share.  To  look  up,  to  aspire, 
to  adore,  to  weep  the  tears  of  failure  and  breathe  the 
sighs  of  hope,  are  the  pathetic  privilege  of  finite  na- 
tures, planted  on  the  open  borders  of  the  infinite.  God 
lives  without  personal  relations  above  him  :  He  has  no 
prayers  to  say,  no  creed  to  repeat ;  and  the  beauty  of 
holiness  in  him  can  have  no  fitting  emblem  in  the 
uplifted  eyes  and  patient  looks  of  the  true  saint.  Of 
his  perfection  we  can  think  only  as  of  a  spontaneous 
conformity  with  an  inward  righteousness  and  a  pure 
preference  of  the  best ;  as  an  inherent  love  of  planting 
out  the  germs  of  this  moral  order  in  other  minds; 


The  Godly  Man.  247 

as  an  ever-during  sympathy  with  its  growth  there, 
bringing  them  nearer  to  himself.  If,  then,  Goodness, 
in  its  culmination,  is  something  other  than  devotion  to 
a  higher  nature,  and  is  divested  of  its  character  of 
personal  affection,  how  can  I  disown  it  as  the  Divine 
in  miniature  when  it  appears  under  the  same  aspect  in 
a  human  mind  ?  If  I  see  a  man  living  out  of  an  inner 
spring  of  inflexible  right  and  pliant  pity  ;  if  he  refuses 
the  colour  of  the  low  world  around  him  ;  if  his  eye 
flashes  with  scorn  at  mean  and  impure  things  which 
are  a  jest  to  others  :  if  high  examples  of  honour  and 
self-sacrifice  bring  the  flush  of  sympathy  upon  his 
cheek ;  if  in  his  sphere  of  rule  he  plainly  obeys  a 
trust  instead  of  enforcing  an  arbitrary  will,  and  in  his 
sphere  of  service  takes  his  yoke  without  a  groan,  and 
does  his  work  with  thought  only  that  it  be  good ;  I 
shall  not  pry  into  his  closet  or  ask  about  his  creed,  but 
own  him  at  once  as  the  godly  man.  Godliness  is  the 
persistent  living  out  an  ideal  preconception  of  the 
Right,  the  Beautiful,  the  Good.  Wherever  this  is 
dominant,  it  ensures — 

1.  A  certain  perfection  and  thoroughness  of  personal 
work.  There  are  two  ways  in  which  all  human 
achievements  may  be  carried  out,  according  as  you 
elaborate  them  from  within  or  from  without.  It  is 
the  boast  of  the  practical  man  that  he  adapts  his 
operations  to  the  external  conditions  which  shut  him 
in,  takes  accurate  measurement  both  of  his  exigencies 


248  The  Godly  Man. 

and  of  his  possibilities,  avails  himself  of  opportunity  and  ^ 
evades  difficulty,-  and  never  permits  himself  to  be  run 
away  with  by  impracticable  aims  ;  and  he  perpetually 
confirms  his  opinion  of  his  own  adroitness  by  his 
visible  success.  Life,  thus  administered,  is  like  a 
game  of  skill,  in  which  every  move  is  computed  by 
balancing  the  values  of  surrounding  contingencies',  and 
making  it  an  advance  or  a  retreat  according  as  there 
may  be  a  better  chance  to  win.  On  the  other  hand,  it 
is  the  habit  of  a  creative  mind  to  spend  its  chief  labour 
in  the  field  of  thought,  to  clear  its  designs,  to  fix  its 
standard,  to  mature  its  projects  there  ;  and  not  till 
then,  except  by  an  unconscious  tact  seldom  absent  from 
such  a  nature,  to  taka  account  of  the  allies  and  foes 
encamped  upon  the  outer  plain ;  and  when  baffled  in 
the  struggle,  as  it  often  is,  to  withdraw  with  quiet  and 
abstracted  look,  unaware  of  the  obtrusive  laughter 
which  proclaims  the  enthusiast's  defeat.  Life,  thus 
administered,  is  like  a  poem  or  a  meditation  overheard ; 
which  finds  a  deeper  meaning  for  what  else  were  shallow 
noise,  and  haunts  the  world  that  is  with  the  spectre  of 
what  ought  to  be.  These  opposite  methods  have  no 
doubt,  to  a  great  extent,  their  separate  spheres ;  the 
one  prevailing  in  works  of  adaptation  and  convenience, 
the  other  in  works  of  genius.  But  neither  can  afford 
to  dispense  with  tile  other  :  and,  above  all,  there  is  no 
human  function  so  purely  mechanical,  no  task  so  poor 
and  common,  no  drudgery  so  dry,  as  to  admit  of  being 


The  Godly  Man.  249 

performed  at  its  best  by  manipulation  and  arithmetic, 
without  a  directing  idea  in  the  mind  and  zeal  in  the 
heart.  Take  this  away, — let  there  be  no  image  in  the 
thought  of  the  perfect  product  as  it  should  ensue  from 
the  hand, — no  sense  of  shame  if  it  be  inferior,  no  joy 
if  it  transcend  ;  and  industry  is  bereft  of  its  very  soul, 
and,  in  the  selfish  attempt  to  shirk  its  obligations,  sinks 
into  veritable  slavery.  Once  measure  your  diligence  by 
mere  outward  necessity,  with  no  anxiety  but  to  get 
passably  to  the  other  side  of  it,  and  the  root  of  all 
dishonesty  has  struck  within  you,  and  will  bear  its 
fruit.  If  you  build,  the  hidden  stones  will  be  rubble  ; 
if  you  plead,  your  language  will  become  suggestive  of 
falsehood,  and  your  ingenuity  degenerate  into  tricks; 
if  you  rule  in  public  affairs,  you  will  learn  the  arts  of 
shiftiness  and  evasion,  and  will  lapse  into  that  shrink- 
ing from  responsibility  which  is  the  modern  form  of 
treason  to  the  State.  The  one  security  for  personal 
fidelity  and  effective  achievement  lies  in  the  ascendant 
habit  of  working  from  within  ;  from  the  native  love  of 
order,  beauty,  right ;  from  faith  in  them  as  the  master- 
ing powers  of  the  outer  world  ;  from  reverent  allegiance 
to  them,  which  makes  acquiescence  in  their  defeat  im- 
piety. As  God  eternally  thinks  out  his  universe  into  a 
perfection  more  divine,  so  does  the  godly,  shaping  the 
scene  around  him  from  the  life  within,  turn  it  into  a 
completer  kosmos,  as  his  time  flows  on. 

2.  This  godliness  again  it  is,  this  inward  stay  upon 


250  The  Godly  Man. 

the  right  and  true,  which  gives  authority  over  dependent 
natures,  and  most  wins  ohedience,  while  most  frugal 
and  tranquil  in  demanding  it.  It  is  sometimes  said, 
that  the  gift  of  command  goes  with  strength  of  will  ; 
and  certain  it  is,  that  from  weakness  of  will  it  passes 
entirely  away.  But  it  is  little  that  can  he  effected  in 
the  aifairs  of  men,  and  nothing  in  the  higher  depart- 
ments of  human  life,  by  mere  driving  force  of  purpose, 
and  intolerance  of  personal  defeat.  It  was  never  meant 
that  in  this  world,  or  any  other  where  responsible  minds 
are  found,  the  pleasure  of  one  should  be  the  law  for 
all ;  and  wherever  that  pretension  is  set  up,  we  all 
turn  rebels  on  the  instant,  and  the  push  begins  of  will 
against  will ;  and,  submit  as  we  may,  it  is  with  protest, 
and  keen  watching  to  slip  the  tyranny.  In  the  armed 
pleasure  of  one  mind  there  is  no  natural  authority  over 
the  unarmed  of  another ;  and  if  the  helpless  yields,  it 
will  be  as  the  captive,  to  work  in  chains,  and  plan 
revenge  in  tears.  It  is  not  stronger  Will,  but  higher 
liight,  that  bears  the  title  to  rule  in  the  societies  of 
men ;  and  only  he  who  visibly  forgets  himself,  and 
becomes  the  organ  of  a  law  he  did  not  make  and  cannot 
alter,  whose  will  is  firm  because  it  is  not  his  own,  but 
is  backed  by  a  divine  adamant  that  cannot  yield,  can 
win  a  loyal  and  glad  obedience.  He  is  not  enforcing 
his  personal  preferences,  but  vindicating  the  just  and 
good,  which  he  at  once  embodies  and  obeys.  This 
total  retreat  of  self,  this  advance  to  the  front  of  an 


The  Godly  Man.  251 

august  and  invisible  moral  necessity,  is  the  secret  of 
that  quiet  dignity  with  which  effective  authority  is 
invariably  exercised.  Rebuke  itself  acquires  a  solemn 
weight  where  it  falls  with  impersonal  gentleness,  spoiled 
by  no  heats  of  fluttered  egotism,  and  tinged  only  with 
the  sorrow  of  disappointed  trust.  Whoever  lives  out 
of  any  inward  faith  in  good,  is  involuntarily  disposed 
to  presume  it  in  others  even  while  it  is  yet  latent,  and 
is  the  first  to  see  it  when  its  incipient  expression  comes ; 
and  in  dealing  with  them  he  addresses  himself  to  it, 
and  confides  in  the  response.  The  very  light  of  hia 
eye  kindles  into  life  the  spot  on  which  it  falls  :  he 
looks  for  the  conscience,  and  it  is  there.  All  who  come 
into  his  presence  learn  to  feel  that  they  have  more  than 
justice  done  to  them ;  that  the  best  they  have  is  seen, 
in  them,  and  the  best  they  can  is  expected  from  them  ; 
and  under  this  warmth  of  appreciation  every  promise  of 
good  hastens  its  growth,  opens  into  the  upper  air,  and 
is  nourished  into  strength.  Yet,  if  they  even  fail,  they 
know  it  is  a  part  of  the  same  faith  which  led  him  to 
expect  the  good,  that  he  will  make  tender  allowance 
for  the  ill,  and  not  surrender  the  hope  baffled  for  the 
moment,  but  true  for  ever.  No  induction  of  experience, 
no  life  computed  by  the  outward  look  of  men  and 
things,  would  ever  attain  this  mingled  authority  and 
sweetness.  They  are  the  natural  expression  of  that 
godliness  which  works  out  of  an  inward  faith  in 
beauty,  truth,  and  good. 


252  The  Godly  Man. 

3.  The  same  principle  carries  with  it  a  grace  whicli 
at  first  view  might  seem  to  contradict  the  claim  of 
natural  authority  over  dependent  natures  ; — a  certain 
deference  towards  others  which  refrains  from  self- 
assertion,  and  rather  becomes  receptive  of  their  good. 
Where  there  is  no  deep  faith  in  the  spiritual  bases  of 
human  life,  in  the  revelation  and  the  power  of  Eight 
in  the  conscience  of  mankind,  there  is  in  the  heart  no 
certain  source  of  "  honour  towards  all  men,"  no  patient 
hope  of  future  nobleness  for  them  to  soothe  the  dis- 
appointment at  their  unworthiness.  Unsustained  by 
moral  trust  and  reverence,  the  gentle  respect,  the 
gracious  amenities  of  life  are  left  to  rest  only  on  the 
personal  affections  ;  and  scarcely  go  beyond  the  private 
circle,  except  when  misfortune  startles  compassion  and 
wakes  the  generosity  which  the  sunshine  sends  to  sleep. 
In  how  many  a  family  may  you  see  the  most  loving 
interior  relations,  the  quick  discernment  of  each  other's 
good,  the  modest  self-estimate,  the  mutual  sacrifice  of 
personal  desire,  the  joy  in  opportunities  of  help  ;  yet, 
towards  the  outer  circle  of  the  world,  a  critical  attitude 
from  which  every  line  of  tenderness,  nay,  every  look 
of  justice,  has  disappeared;  the  censorious  talk,  the 
malignant  hint,  the  suspicious  prophecy,  the  mean 
construction,  the  eager  tale  of  some  shame  at  which 
the  heart  might  weep  !  All  this  would  seem  to  con- 
tradict the  first  impression  of  that  gentle  home.  It  is 
simply  that  the  affections  are  near-sighted,  and  have 


The  Godly  Man.  253 

no  faith ;  they  are  ready,  clear  and  true,  so  far  as 
their  vision  goes  ;  every  soft  light  arrests  them,  every 
blossom  of  beauty  charms  them ;  but  where  the  dis- 
tance lies  beyond  their  organ  and  the  mist  closes 
round,  they  believe  only  in  daikness  and  all  that  it 
may  hide.  They  are  unconscious  of  their  strange 
illusion ;  that  in  a  world  all  human,  a  world  which  in 
its  breadth  does  but  repeat  their  little  plot,  they  should 
see  so  much  that  is  lovely  at  home,  and  believe  in  so 
much  deformity  abroad.  God  save  us  from  the  bitter- 
ness and  scorn  of  the  cynical  spirit,  by  giving  us  the 
faith  of  the  godly  in  the  secret  springs  of  good  !  For 
him,  in  his  intercourse  with  men,  the  presumption  is 
always  on  the  side  of  simplicity  and  rectitude  ;  he  does 
not  believe  in  knavery  till  his  keen  search  has  been 
pushed  through  all  the  title-deeds  of  good  repute ;  he 
recognises  a  provisional  claim  in  humanity  itself,  and 
allows  his  respect  to  enter  into  possession,  until  some 
fatal  flaw  compels  its  retreat.  As  it  is  the  theory  of 
habitual  distrust,  the  perpetual  need  of  exceptional 
vigilance,  that  makes  the  City  vulgar,  so  it  is  the 
natural  ease  of  a  pure  and  confiding  mind  which 
imports  true  refinement  and  composure  to  the  person 
in  whom  it  dwells.  Surrounded  by  those  whom  he 
respects,  if  not  for  what  they  are,  for  what  they  may 
be,  he  is  drawn  out  towards  them  on  the  lines  of  genial 
appreciation ;  he  converses  only  with  their  good ;  the 
egotism  possible  to  us  all  sleeps  and  never  stirs  within 


254  The  Godly  Man. 

him  ;  its  insolence  of  thought,  its  rudeness  of  speech, 
its  selfishness  of  act,  are  impossible  to  him ;  and  the 
dignified  stability  of  a  mind  that  lives  from  within  is 
naturally  clothed  with -the  modest  grace  of  reverence 
and  charity. 

Wherever  these  lineaments  of  character  appear,  we 
look  upon  the  face  of  righteousness,  and  cannot  join  in 
the  desponding  cry  "  Help,  Lord,  for  the  godly  man 
ceaseth."  If  they  do  not  reflect  the  Divine  likeness, 
I  know  not  where  we  are  to  seek  it.  Shall  I  then  say  a 
strange  thing  if  I  affirm  that,  nevertheless,  the  picture 
is  not  perfect  ?  Its  features  take  no  notice  of  God,  and 
mould  themselves  as  if  he  were  not.  They  would 
complete  the  human  lines  of  excellence  and  beauty,  if 
Man  were  the  highest  of  beings  and  stood  upon  the 
world  as  its  god ;  but  does  not  complete  them,  since 
they  leave  without  trace  his  relation  to  the  Infinite 
Mind,  whose  love  he  unconsciously  shares  and  whose 
trust  he  blindly  executes.  To  live  "  like  gods,"  when 
we  are  not  so,  is  a  condition  which  no  virtues  or  affec- 
tions can  redeem  from  distortion  and  mistake.  And 
were  we  really  "gods,"  yet  embraced  in  the  empire  of 
a  "  God  of  gods,"  it  is  plain  that  to  ignore  or  forget 
this  feature  of  our  position  could  only  weaken  and 
mutilate  our  moral  nature,  leaving  it  without  the 
energy  of  loyalty  and  the  graces  of  confiding  obedience. 
To  consummate,  therefore,  the  adjustment  of  our 
character  to  our  place,  we  need  to  own  the  Divine  Spirit 


The  Godly  Man.  255 

above  us  as  well  as  to  have  it  within  us,  and  to  let  its 
brightness  in  ourselves  be  the  reflection  of  our  com- 
munion with  him ;  to  transform  what  was  before  a 
self-asserting  impulse  of  right  into  personal  reverence 
and  love;  to  learn  what  it  is  to  lean  on  an  invisible 
support,  to  find  a  living  Guide  in  every  darkness,  and 
to  hear  an  inspiration  that  is  not  carried  on  the  wind. 
He  who  thus  recognises  his  human  position,  and  takes 
its  new  affections  into  his  heart,  is  not  weakened,  but 
incredibly  strengthened  by  his  conscious  dependence ; 
and  will  the  better  serve  as  a  stay  to  others,  when  his 
own  feet  are  planted  on  the  Rock. 


XX. 

Cjre  Jfimsr  rniir  (gtofcr  fUircjtom  0f  < 


EOM.  x.  14,  15. 

"How  shall  they  believe  in  him  of  whom  they  have  not  heard?  and 
how  shall  they  hear  without  a  preacher?  and  how  shall  they  preach, 
except  they  be  sent  ? — As  it  is  written,  How  beautiful  are  the  feet  of 
them  that  preach  the  gospel  of  peace,  and  bring  glad  tidings  of  good 
things." 

EVER  since  Civil  Society  has  been  an  object  of  study 
and  reflection,  it  has  affected  thoughtful  minds  with 
a  strange  mixture  of  admiration  and  compassion.  It 
seems  at  once  the  glory  of  our  nature,  and  its  shame. 
Other  races  are  rendered  gregarious  by  various  wants 
and  common  affections ;  but  man  alone  balances  yet 
deepens  the  mutual  dependence  by  the  arts  of  exchange. 
Other  races  submit  to  be  led  by  the  strong,  and  combine 
their  toil  for  co-operative  works  ;  but  with  him  alone 
does  Law  ascend  from  force  to  Right,  and  union  pass 
from  blind  instinct  to  conscious  self-devotion,  and  the 
mere  nest  or  hive  is  replaced  by  the  City  and  the  State. 
To  detect  any  clear  improvement  in  other  creatures,  you 
must  take  your  survey  by  geologic  time ;  but,  for  him, 


The  Inner  and  Outer  Kingdom  of  God.   257 

the  little  span  of  history  suffices  ;  and  while  the  swallow, 
the  beaver,  and  the  ant  build  and  live  as  they  did  before 
he  began  to  note  their  ways,  he  needs  but  a  few  cen- 
turies to  move  with  accelerated  pace  from  the  rudeness 
that  keeps  no  record  of  itself  to  a  civilization  crowded 
with  material  resources,  and  rich  in  its  jurisprudence, 
literature,  and  art.  A  human  commomvealth  with  its 
hierarchy  of  mutual  service,  its  army  of  tamed  passions, 
its  invisible  guard  of  ideal  restraints,  its  traditions  of 
heroism,  its  hopes  of  greatness,  its  sympathy  with  the 
moral  life  of  the  world,  is  the  highest  product  of  the 
Providence  of  God,  and  the  most  impressive  witness  to 
the  possibilities  of  Man.  Yet  within  this  -  glorious 
product,  as  it  grows  and  spreads,  there  lurks  a  canker 
that  feeds  on  its  exuberance,  and  perforates  its  substance 
with  misery  and  decay.  The  expansion  and  consolida- 
tion of  the  State,  which  give  a  grander  career  to  genius 
and  power,  leave  no  shelter  for  the  maimed  and  weak, 
but  turn  them  out  into  a  battle  where  they  are  sure  to 
fall ;  and  in  some  form  or  other, — the  slave-quarter, — 
the  serf- village, — or  the  poor-house, — the  sign  has  never 
been  absent,  from  any  nation  that  has  a  history,  of  a 
crushed  or  unreclaimed  humanity.  It  seems  as  though 
the  distances  widened  as  the  education  of  the  world 
advanced  ;  and  while  our  nature  at  one  end  moved  on  a 
vaster  scale,  at  the  other  it  shrivelled  and  rotted  away. 
Only  in  a  ripe  community  can  the  statesman,  the  poet, 
the  philosopher,  the  artist,  appear,  or  any  product  of 

s 


258  The  Inner  and  Outer 

the  Mind  go  forth  that  shall  he  "a  possession  for 
ever."  Yet  the  great  cities  which  they  immortalize 
hide,  hehind  their  temples  and  their  courts,  a  thousand 
festering  ills  ;  they  are  ths  birth-place  of  new  diseases, 
the  nursery  of  hateful  vices,  and  afford  in  their  densest 
parts  hut  a  crowded  solitude  of  unpitied  miseries.  This 
contrast  of  brilliant  resource  with  humiliating  failure, 
of  a  society  blossoming  at  the  head  and  pining  at  the 
root,  has  always  affected  thoughtful  minds  with  a 
"noble  discontent."  The  joint  spectacle  of  high  capa- 
bilities and  mean  sufferings  is  intolerable  to  every 
generous  heart :  the  light  of  inward  hope  conflicts  with 
the  darkness  undeniable  without,  and  tries  to  penetrate 
it  and  touch  it  with  some  colours  of  ideal  promise. 
From  this  impulse  have  sprung  all  social  theories ; — 
philosophical  republics,  Eutopias,  socialisms,  kingdoms 
of  heaven ;  all  aspire  to  realise  the  ascertained  passi- 
bilities,  and  exclude  the  saddest  disappointments,  of  our 
human  union. 

No  relief,  said  Plato,  will  ever  reach  the  ills  of  men, 
till  either  statesmen  become  philosophers,  or  philoso- 
phers assume  the  government  of  states.  This  saying 
indicates  the  direction  in  which  the  Greek  mind  sought 
the  solution  of  the  social  problem.  You  must  deal,  it 
was  thought,  with  the  commonwealth  as  a  whole,  and 
put  a  reconstructing  hand  upon  it  from  the  place  of 
power.  Ths  scene  is  all  wrong  on  which  you  plant 
men,  and  where  you  train  them :  you  leave  it  open  to 


Kingdom  of  God.  259 

unprincipled  competitions :  you  make  its  bribes  to  private 
selfishness  too  great,  its  demands  on  public  sacrifice  too 
small :  you  place  its  supreme  interests  at  the  disposal 
of  incompetence,  setting  over  its  tribunals  those  who 
have  no  knowledge  of  justice,  and  over  its  schools  those 
who  have  false  notions  of  education  :  you  let  the  poets 
tell  mischievous  fables  about  the  gods,  and  the  orators 
talk  flattering  sophistry  to  the  people  :  you  foster  the 
taste  which  admires  successful  ambition,  and  scorns  the 
abstinence  of  incorruptible  rectitude.  You  must  sweep 
all  this  away,  and  rebuild  the  theatre  of  life ;  per- 
mitting none  to  come  upon  it  who  do  not  bid  fair  for 
manly  strength  and  virtue ;  assigning  to  each  his  place 
and  career,  and  precluding  him  from  functions  for  which 
he  is  not  fit ;  and  so  disciplining  all  for  the  character 
possible  to  them, — the  workers  foi*  industry  and  temper- 
ance, the  soldiers  for  bravery  and  obedience,  the  rulers 
for  wisdom  and  integrity, — that  the  whole  may  exhibit 
a  partnership  and  equilibrium  of  goodness  like  the 
unity  of  a  single  harmonious  Soul.  Schemes  of  this 
kind  for  mending  the  world  rested  all  their  hopes 
on  arrangement,  and  computed  simply  the  forces  of 
environing  influence.  In  dealing  with  the  problem, 
men,  as  they  were  found  in  experience  to  be,  constituted 
the  immutable  factor,  which  was  to  be  let  alone,  and 
made  to  yield  a  new  result  only  by  being  worked  into 
new  conditions.  A  revolution  in  the  world  was  re- 
quired, to  change  any  individual  man. 

s  2 


260  The  Inner  and  0 liter 

The  method  of  Christianity  appears  the  very  opposite 
to  this;  and  has  at  all  events  become  so  in  its 
administration  now.  It  is  not,  with  us,  a  theory  of 
reorganised  society,  the  dream  of  a  new  Polity,  through 
the  establishment  of  which  character  is  to  attain  its 
true  proportions ;  but  a  direct  appeal  to  the  individual 
conscience,  which  aims  to  redeem  men,  one  by  one, 
and  bring  them,  just  where  they  stand,  into  inner 
harmony  with  God.  And  it  is  true  that,  in  its  origin 
also,  Christianity  left  the  existing  constitution  of  the 
world  alone,  and,  unlike  the  philosophers,  propounded 
no  projects  for  modelling  it  anew.  This  however  arose, 
not  from  any  better  opinion  of  it,  but  from  a  worse ; 
not  from  indifference  towards  it,  but  from  despair  of 
it ;  not  from  retreat  into  the  citadel  of  the  inner  man 
to  defy  the'  enemies  without,  but  from  the  vision  of  a 
City  of  God  in  which  already  the  disciples  were  enrolled, 
and  which,  without  aid  of  theirs,  would  soon  replace 
the  Empire  of  the  seven  hills.  It  was  not  for  want  of 
the  old  dream  of  a  divine  commonwealth,  but  because 
that  dream,  as  they  believed,  God  would  realise  for 
them,  that  they  were  neutral  to  the  existing  State,  and 
wasted  on  it  neither  zeal  nor  enmity.  They  too  had 
their  image  of  perfect  life,  their  sacred  allegiance,  their 
society  swayed  by  eternal  justice  and  secure  of  right- 
eous order ;  and,  possessed  by  the  faith  and  expectation 
of  it,  they  so  lived  in  it  as  to  become  "  dead  "to  this 
world,  and  carry  all  their  thought  and  heart  into  the 


Kingdom  of  God.  261 

relations  of  "  another  country,  even  a  heavenly."  Their 
despair  of  the  actual  and  historic  scene  of  things  was 
thus  deeper  than  the  philosopher's :  for  they  never 
thought  of  mending  or  reconstructing  it :  they  simply 
left  it  to  perish.  And  in  withdrawing  from  it,  they 
meant  to  retire,  not  into  a  mystic  inward  life  of  indivi- 
dual piety,  much  less  into  any  Stoic  strength  of  personal 
isolation,  but  into  the  citizenship  of  a  better  community, 
soon  to  be  realized,  and  blending  in  itself  meanwhile 
the  seen  with  the  unseen,  and  animating  the  posts  of 
duty  below  with  the  living  inspiration  of  Christ  and  God 
above. 

This  death  to  the  actual  world,  this  life  in  an  ideal 
which  replaced  it  without  conflicting  with  it,  inciden- 
tally brought  into  existence  the  highest  characteristic 
of  Christian  civilization.  The  image  of  a  holier  life, 
of  a  kingdom  of  God  where  wrong  and  sin  should 
never  come,  touched  the  sleeping  springs  of  higher 
affection  and  spiritual  power  in  the  heart,  and  lifted 
men  into  a  new  birth  of  character.  New  tastes,  new 
love,  new  hopes  broke  upon  them  from  depths  of 
their  nature  never  reached  before,  and  delivered  them 
from  the  thraldom  of  outward  things  and  the  strife  of 
the  passions  they  had  served.  Snatched  from  them- 
selves, and  carried  off  by  a  spirit  diviner  than  their 
own,  they  see  their  own  past  which  was  hid  from  them 
before,  and  hear  and  answer  many  a  call  of  God  that 
had  come  to  their  deaf  ear  in  vain.  A  consecration 


262  The  Inner  and  Outer 

falls  upon  the  walks  of  daily  duty  and  the  place  of 
nightly  rest  :  a  beauty  enters  for  them  into  the 
simplest  task  that  only  has  a  better  and  a  worse ;  and 
there  is  a  Presence  that  allays  the  troubles,  and  puts  a 
sweetness  into  the  discords  of  life.  Looking  away  from 
the  scattered  and  broken  fragments  of  goodness  among 
men  to  the  perfect  natures  of  a  supernal  sphere,  the 
disciple  was  carried  clear  past  the  ancient  standards  of 
piety  and  moral  strength  ;  and,  leaving  behind  him  the 
piece-meal  distribution  of  virtues  among  classes  and 
ranks,  rose  to  the  great  idea  of  One  Righteousness, 
realized  in  heaven,  approached  on  earth,  alike  possible, 
alike  necessary,  for  all  minds.  This  is  the  true  and 
indestructible  ground  of  Christian  brotherhood  and 
unity, — this  recognition  of  a  common  capacity  for  re- 
semblance to  God,  a  common  liability  to  fall  away 
from  it,  a  common  trust  to  press  into  greater  near- 
ness to  it.  And  this  was  found  in  the  fervour  of  that 
first  age,  when  the  Christians  died  to  the  fermenting 
world  around  them,  and  flung  themselves  into  the 
affections  of  an  ideal  state,  and  tried  the  tender  ties 
of  mutual  sacrifice,  and  rehearsed  the  life  of  a  holy 
and  perfect  world.  And  the  experiment,  once  tried, 
vindicated  itself  by  the  permanent  elevation  which  it 
produced  in  human  thought  and  character.  The  acci- 
dents of  the  conception  fell  away,  the  essence  remained : 
unsuspected  depths  of  the  moral  nature  were  revealed : 
indefinite  possibilities  of  the  spirit  burst  the  bounds  of 


Kingdom  of  God.  263 

expectation,  and  showed  where  the  living  germs  of  good 
were  lurking  unseen ;  and  it  became  the  settled  expe- 
rience of  Christendom,  that  humanity  and  God  are 
never  hopelessly  estranged  from  one  another ;  but  that, 
if  the  true  congenial  point  of  any  single  soul  can  be 
reached  and  touched,  even  the  dead  will  be  alive  again, 
and  the  lost  will  be  found. 

Thus,  from  the  lonely  life  of  the  first  Christians,  which 
could  only  work  internally  upon  itself,  came  to  light 
the  great  truth  that,  without  waiting  to  reconstruct  his 
world,  man  in  himself  may  become  a  new  creature,  and 
take  the  initiative  at  home  in  introducing  the  kingdom 
of  heaven.  Renouncing  the  maxims  of  prudent  despair, 
— that  you  must  take  men  as  they  are,  that  you  must 
suit  the  scene  around  them  to  their  proved  weakness 
and  make  the  best  of  their  inevitable  sin, — Christianity 
has  ever  charged  its  missionaries  thus :  "  Go  forth  to 
this  people,  and  speak  to  them  from  the  level,  not  of 
what  they  are,  but  of  what  they  ought  to  be :  take  with 
you  the  measure,  not  of  outward  existence,  but  of  the 
inner  sanctuary :  abate  no  claim  of  God  upon  them, 
but  tell  them  all  his  righteous  will :  remember  that 
you  are  his,  rather  than  theirs,  or  theirs  only  for  his 
sake :  fling  yourself  on  the  tide  of  his  love,  and  fear 
not  that  you  will  be  borne  in  upon  some  hidden  inlet 
of  their  nature  :  nay,  his  compassion  in  your  heart 
will  make  a  way  where  there  was  none  before,  and 
shake  the  dull  souls  till  they  start  up  and  prophesy." 


264  The  Inner  and  Outer 

This  faith  in  the  spiritual  possibilities  of  every  indivi- 
dual conscience  has  passed,  as  an  inseparable  constit- 
uent, into  the  permanent  life  of  Christendom.  Only, 
it  now  acts  on  a  world  which  is  no  longer  expected  to 
perish,  which  we  cannot  dismiss  from  our  attention 
as  delivered  over  to  Satan,  which  we  are  not  permitted 
tc  escape  as  foreign  to  us ;  but  which,  as  the  abiding 
school  of  our  humanity,  we  are  bound  to  set  in  order 
and  to  recover  for  God.  So  that  the  scene  of  tilings  is 
returned  upon  our  hands,  and  the  social  problems  of 
the  old  philosophy  renew  themselves  upon  a  larger 
and  more  complicated  world.  The  two  rival  proposals, 
which  Pagan  wisdom  and  Evangelic  zeal  divided  be- 
tween them, — to  redeem  the  life  of  persons,  and  to 
amend  the  scene  of  things,  have  lost  their  enmity,  have 
fallen  into  partnership,  and  devolve  upon  us  together. 
In  dealing  with  them,  however,  there  must  still  remain 
a  division  of  labour ;  seeing  that,  in  spite  of  their 
unity  at  last,  the  agencies  and  faculties  that  are  needed 
for  the  one  are  seldom  qualified  to  serve  the  other.  It 
must  ever  be  the  function  of  the  secular  State  to  re- 
adjust the  things  that  furnish  forth  the  theatre  of  life, 
to  settle  institutions,  economy,  police  and  laws,  and  see 
to  it  that  they  constitute  a  fitting  school  for  just  and 
righteous  habits.  But  to  the  spiritual  agency  of  the 
Church  it  must  be  left  to  address  itself  to  persons,  one 
by  one,  to  reach  the  secret  springs  of  better  life,  and 
speak  for  God  to  the  languid  but  undying  conscience  of 


Kingdom  of  God.  265 

humanity.  Of  this  divine  work  we  must  never  weary, 
and  never  despair ;  hut  carry  into  it  the  eternal  patience 
of  God ;  who,  age  after  age,  solicits  with  his  grace 
every  soul  of  man ;  and  now  here,  now  there,  stands 
at  the  door,  and  knocks,  and  would  lift  the  latch  on 
the  first  hospitable  hint.  With  one  and  another,  nay 
with  multitudes,  the  Christian  appeal  may  seem  to  he 
made  in  vain :  but,  if  only  the  true  heat  of  the  heart 
goes  with  it,  it  will  find  some  hiding-place  in  many  a 
mind  that  for  the  moment  owns  it  not;  and,  like  a 
phrase  of  forgotten  music  or  the  snatches  of  a  perished 
dream,  will  steal  forth  in  some  tender  twilight  hour, 
when  there  are  none  to  see  the  tears  of  compunction, 
or  to  mock  at  the  returning  tones  of  prayer.  This 
trust  in  the  living  Spirit  of  God,  which  finds  some 
crevice  still  open  in  the  hardest  heart,  this  persistency 
of  appeal  that  cannot  listen  to  despair,  is  the  true 
prophetic  gift,  without  which  the  Church  is  a  pretence 
and  the  preacher  had  better  hold  his  peace.  It  is  the 
first  requisite  of  Religion,  the  primary  inspiration  of  all 
Faith,  that  the  witness  to  the  higher  life  must  never 
falter  and  never  cease  :  if  once  it  grows  ashamed  before 
the  face  of  unawakened  men,  and,  like  the  timid  poet, 
shrinks  from  the  laugh  of  the  dull  and  blind  and  can 
only  nurse  itself  in  solitude,  it  is  living  faith  no  more  ; 
and  is  equally  unlike  the  apostle,  who,  amid  the 
splendid  idolatries  of  Athens,  remonstrated  "  daily  in 
the  market  place  with  such  as  met  with  him  " ;  and 


266  The  Inner  and  Outer 

the  Son  of  Man  himself  who,  even  in  the  retirement  of 
the  hills,  when  he  saw  the  multitudes  "  as  sheep  with- 
out a  shepherd,"  had  compassion  on  them,  and  poured 
forth  to  them  his  divinest  words. 

To  reach  the  springs  of  inner  life  where  they  are 
sealed  up,  and  keep  them  clear  where  they  are  flowing, 
the  one  great  agency  is,  the  personal  power  of  an 
earnest  and  sympathetic  mind,  living  itself  in  a  higher 
order  of  ideas,  and  above  the  danger  of  heing  dragged 
down  to  the  level  where  they  are  lost.  There  lies  the 
true  pastoral  gift;  deep  faith  in  God,  deep  pity  for 
man ;  and  strength  to  carry  the  vision  of  a  divine  order 
into  the  qlash  and  confusion  of  the  world :  and  wher- 
ever you  meet  with  any  good  measure  of  this  gift, 
thank  God  that  the  prophets  are  not  dead  :  arm  it 
freely  with  your  outward  help,  and  confide  in  it  from 
your  inmost  heart.  Send  it, — better  still  take  it, — as 
the  messenger  alike  of  humanity  and  God,  into  the 
City  recesses,  where  the  struggle  of  life  is  fiercest,  and 
brightened  least  by  either  physical  or  spiritual  light. 
There  is  nothing  like  the  living  breath  of  conviction 
and  trust,  for  fanning  every  latent  suspicion  and  heal- 
ing compunction  that  else  would  die.  Tell  me  not 
that  the  weight  of  ill  is  too  heavy  to  be  lifted;  the 
greater  the  burthen,  the  more  elastic  force  is  needed  to 
heave  it  off.  Do  you  say,  the  material  conditions  of 
our  poor  neighbourhoods  are  too  oppressive  to  give 
encouragement  ?  then  are  they  too  oppressive  to  permit 


Kingdom  of  God.  267 

desertion  and  neglect.  The  more  they  stifle  the 
spiritual  possibilities,  the  more  must  they  be  counter- 
balanced by  persistency  of  culture,  and  intensity  of 
appeal.  Would  you  really  plead  the  density  of  the 
darkness  as  the  reason  of  withholding  the  sparse  and 
only  light  ?  Be  assured,,  if  we  speak  thus  of  our  poor, 
they  are  no  darker  than  we.  It  is  all  a  fancy  that, 
even  in  their  lot,  different  as  it  looks,  they  are  much 
other  than  ourselves  in  their  temptations,  in  their 
affections,  and  in  their  victories.  Who  that  knows 
them,  in  their  troubles  and  their  strivings,  would  dare 
to  give  the  counsels  of  hopelessness  ?  Are  there  not, 
there  as  elsewhere,  inequalities  of  character,  ranging 
over  every  grade,  from  the  mean  to  the  heroic  ?  marvels 
of  unselfishness,  fortitude,  and  temperance,  attesting 
the  noblest  force  of  conscience,  as  well  as  the  yielding 
habits  by  which  indigence  itself  may  rot  away  in 
luxury?  From  such  a  field,  at  once  of  sadness  and 
of  promise,  would  you  recall  every  reminder  of  higher 
obligation,  every  aid  to  struggling  goodness,  every 
nurture  of  divine  hope  and  love  ?  Can  no  father  be 
sustained  by  self-sacrifice  to  prolong  the  education  of 
his  children  ?  no  mother  be  helped  to  make  her  sons 
and  daughters  truthful,  brave,  and  modest  ?  no  youth 
be  braced  up  to  manly  self-government  amid  the  temp- 
tations of  the  City  ?  The  more  tainted  the  atmo- 
sphere around,  surely  all  the  more  need  is  there  for  a 
loving  friend  of  every  righteous  effort  to  pass,  as  a 


268  The  Inner  and  Outer 

breath  of  moral  wholesomeness,  through  the  unventi- 
lated  courts  of  life.  Nor  is  it  true  that  this  personal 
dealing  with  men,  one  by  one,  stands  in  the  way  of  any 
larger  reform  of  the  field  on  which  they  live.  On  the 
contrary,  it  justifies  the  reformer's  enthusiasm  and 
accelerates  his  work ;  and  brings  to  every  problem  that 
minute  and  practical  insight  without  which  it  cannot 
be  wisely  solved.  Indeed  every  religious  mission  that 
carries  the  cleansing  spirit  of  Christ  where  it  was  un- 
known before,  reforms  its  own  field  in  little,  and  re- 
hearses the  experiments  that  must  pass  on  to  a  greater 
stage.  Not  till  the  outward  and  the  inward  agencies 
understand  each  other  and  go  to  their  work  together, 
will  men  be  relieved  from  the  pressures  which  keep 
them  in  their  littleness  and  sin  and  suffering ;  or  their 
nature  expand  in  all  dimensions  together,  and  justify 
the  ideal  hopes  of  Christian  faith.  But  in  this 
partnership,  it  is  and  must  ever  remain  the  peculiar 
function  of  Christian  societies  to  deal,  not  so  much 
with  the  things  that  surround  and  influence  human 
life,  as  with  the  living  persons  themselves  that  con- 
stitute it ;  to  see  them  in  their  individuality ;  to  hold 
them  in  presence  of  sympathy  which  feels  not  only  for 
them  but  with  them ;  to  find  in  them,  by  searching 
appeal,  the  higher  capacities  and  lovelier  features  of 
that  humanity  which  Christ  sanctified  for  us  all.  The 
Church  which  abdicates  this  office  or  turns  it  into  a 
pretence  is  in  the  eye  of  God  a  Church  no  more ;  and 


Kingdom  of  God.  269 

in  abandoning  its  divinest  function  will  soon  discover 
that  its  own  life  is  withering  away.  Some  sincere  and 
natural  intercourse  with  the  poor  and  suffering,  some 
vivifying  contact  with  struggles  and  sorrows  not  our 
own,  is  indispensable  to  the  discipline  of  character  as 
well  as  to  the  fulfilment  of  duty;  and  the  frequent 
tendency  to  substitute,  for  the  real  compassions  and 
executed  labours  of  love,  the  fictitious  griefs  of  the 
drama  or  the  tale  which  genius  fetches  from  scenes  of 
misery  to  fling  into  the  lap  of  ease,  will  be  found,  if  it 
lead  to  no  personal  action,  not  a  source  of  strength,  but 
an  enervating  delusion.  Not  so,  but  by  standing  face 
to  face  with  the  injured  natures  and  grievous  lot  we 
would  redeem,  by  meeting  them  eye  to  eye  and  speak- 
ing to  them  in  the  vernacular  language  of  the  true 
heart,  can  we  vindicate  the  communion  of  all  orders 
and  ages  of  men  with  one  another  and  with  God,  as 
kindred  branches  of  the  great  family  of  souls. 


XXI. 

in 


MATTHEW  xiiL  34,  35. 

"  All  these  things  spake  Jesus  unto  the  multitude  in  parables ;  and 
without  a  parable  spake  he  not  unto  them  ;  that  it  might  be  fulfilled  which 
was  spoken  by  the  prophet,  saying,  '  I  will  open  my  mouth  in  parables  ; 
I  will  utter  things  hidden  from  the  foundation  of  the  world.'  " 

THE  parable,  then,  is  a  mode  of  uttering  "  things 
hidden";  of  bringing  to  the  light  the  deep -buried 
secrets  of  the  heart ;  and  drawing  forth  into  conscious- 
ness those  divine  and  primitive  truths  which  have  been 
Bet  from  the  beginning  in  the  firmament  of  the  soul, 
but,  for  want  of  an  interpreter,  have  been  taken  for 
sparkles  instead  of  suns.  All  the  critics  in  the  world, 
with  their  learned  disquisitions  on  allegory  and  apologue 
and  metaphor  and  simile,  can  never  mend  the  prophet's 
idea  of  a  parable, — so  brief,  so  exact,  so  profound, — as 
a  way  of  indicating  realities  hidden  from  the  foundation 
of  'the  world.  The  critics  will  tell  you  that  the  use  of 
this  mode  of  instruction  in  ancient  times  was  a  conse- 
quence of  the  oral  teaching  then  prevalent ;  that  printing 


Religion  in  Parable.  271 

being  unknown,  and  writing  uncommon,  it  was  neces- 
sary to  strike  deep  into  the  mind  at  once  the  lesson 
which  vanished  on  the  lips;  that  so,  the  prophets  in 
the  palace  or  the  street,  the  seer  in  the  desert,  the  man 
of  God  on  the  beach  or  the  hill-side,  borrowed  hints 
from  the  scene  around,  and  painted  sacred  things  in 
visual  and  dramatic  forms  on  the  imagination  of 
monarch  or  of  multitude.  But  now  that  art  has  clipped 
the  "  winged  words,"  and  memory  betakes  itself  to 
books,  we  are  more  elaborately  and  precisely  taught  by 
argument  and  precept ;  and  human  nature,  emerging 
from  its  childhood,  exchanges  its  love  of  fable  and 
similitude  for  moral  and  religious  philosophy.  I  rather 
suspect  a  different  cause  for  the  phenomenon  in  ques- 
tion; and  doubt  whether,  even  if  Jesus  of  Nazareth 
were  living  among  us  now,  amid  all  the  advantages  of 
cheap  tracts  and  daily  journals,  he  would  teach  us 
much  otherwise  than  after  the  old  fashion, — not  with 
the  dead  page  and  laboured  disquisition,  but  with  the 
living  voice,  and  the  artless  parable.  For,  I  take  it, 
different  conceptions  of  the  work  to  be  achieved  lie  at 
the  root  of  his  method  and  of  ours :  ours  assuming 
that  religion  is  to  be  put  into  the  mind  ;  his,  that  it  is 
to  be  brought  out  of  it ;  ours  aiming  to  teach  the  truth 
by  intellectual  judgment;  his,  to  inspire  it  by  moral 
sympathy ;  ours  speaking  with  didactic  baldness,  as  to 
the  ignorant ;  his,  with  mystic  hints  and  deep  sug- 
gestions, as  to  a  fraternity  already  taught  of  God,  and 


272  Religion  in  Parable. 

needing  but  a  new  touch  of  holy  light  to  re-awaken 
trust  and  wonder  from  their  sleep.  He  who  instructs 
by  indirect  and  figurative  methods,  and,  avoiding  literal 
statements,  delights  in  allusion  and  analogy,  supposes 
one  or  both  of  two  things ;  viz.  that  his  subject  is 
incapable  of  direct  presentation ;  or,  that  his  hearers 
possess  its  fundamental  ideas,  and  require,  not  its  form 
within  their  thought,  but  its  spirit  in  their  souls.  Both 
these  assumptions  appear  to  me  to  pervade  the  whole 
ministry  of  Christ ;  to  have  opened  his  lips  in  parables, 
as  the  natural  speech  of  religion ;  and  to  explain  in 
part,  why  "never  man  spake  like  this  man." 

The  essence  of  parable  obviously  consists  in  this ; 
that  its  representations  are  typical  and  mediate,  not 
literal  and  direct ;  special  and  picturesque  not  abstract 
and  philosophic ;  moral  in  their  unity  and  movement, 
not  logical.  Hence  it  will  be  found  the  fittest  instru- 
ment in  religion  for  the  expression  of  Belief,  of  Worship, 
and  of  the  sanctities  of  Conscience. 

Religious  belief  is  obliged  to  resort  to  the  language 
of  emblems,  simply  because  its  objects  are  all  in- 
finite in  their  nature,  and  respecting  infinite  things  the 
literal  truth  is  unattainable  and  incommunicable.  God, 
heaven,  responsibility,  are  beyond  the  measure  of  our 
experience  ;  vast  as  the  atmosphere  to  the  bird  or  the 
forest  to  the  child  ;  regions  whose  circuit  we  cannot 
make,  but  which  embrace  us  always,  yet  never  shut  us 
in.  We  were  created  in  their  midst ;  we  dwell  within 


Religion  in  Parable.  273 

them  now ;  we  can  emerge  from  them  no  more.  Our 
souls  are  subjects,  and  not  lords  within  this  realm, — 
permitted  only  to  do  its  appointed  service,  and  obey  its 
nearest  law.  Not  unless  they  transcend  the  confines 
of  our  experience  can  any  objects  of  thought  become 
religious.  If  we  could  discover  the  country  of  departed 
spirits, — hold  daily  converse  with  the  sainted  blest,  and 
grow  familiar  with  the  everlasting  hills,  the  reality  of 
the  better  land  would  so  far  cease  to  be  a  religious 
truth,  and  be  transferred  from  our  faith  to  our 
geography.  And  when  we  ourselves  have  emigrated 
thither  in  death,  be  its  experience  what  it  may,  it  will 
become  our  earth  ;  divine  perhaps  and  holy,  but,  if  so, 
only  through  a  discernment  equally  possible  here,  of 
some  invisible  sanctity,  some  secret  awe  within  its 
scenes  ;  while  this  world,  as  it  falls  into  the  retrospect, 
will  sink  into  the  celestial  hues ;  and  we  shall  live, 
between  one  heaven  of  reminiscence,  and  still  perhaps 
another  of  hope.  So  again,  if  the  work  of  life  pre- 
sented itself  to  us  only  as  an  external  and  mechanical 
task, — a  routine  of  dry  and  calculative  habit,  there 
would  be  nothing  devout  in  duty.  It  is  the  boundless 
depth  of  obligation, — the  infinite  beauty  of  holiness, 
the  sigh  for  a  sinless  devotion  of  heart  and  will,  that 
fling  the  conscience  into  penitence  and  prayer.  And 
were  it  not  that  obligation  enlarges  with  capacity,  and 
the  tension  of  the  will  must  maintain  an  everlasting 
strife,  and  the  ease  of  living  well  bids  us  begin  to 

T 


274  Religion  in  Parable. 

live  better,  there  would  be  no  permanent  sacredness,  no 
heavenly  allegiance,  in  the  moral  ties  that  bind  us. 
Nay,  God  himself  is  adorable  in  his  perfections,  in  that 
they  are  unapproachable.  Behind  their  visible  splen- 
dour they  pass  into  the  deeps  and  hide  themselves  in 
mystery.  From  the  outlines  of  daylight  he  seems  to 
vanish  away ;  and  he  made  night  on  Sinai's  top  ere  he 
could  appear  :  and  though  on  the  mount  of  transfigura- 
tion it  was  a  bright  cloud  by  which  he  overshadowed 
his  servants,  yet  cloud  there  was  to  veil  his  glory  still. 
We  are  not  indeed  to  suppose  that  there  is  any  piety 
in  mere  ignorance,  or  anything  but  impiety  in  with- 
holding attainable  knowledge :  but  assuredly  only  that 
can  permanently  remain  venerable  to  u.s  which  is  above 
us, — which  puts  forth  power,  and  life,  and  light  upon 
us :  and  so  wonderful  is  the  universe  that  lies  before 
the  worshipper's  thought,  that  the  more  he  knows,  the 
more  seems  the  province  left  unknown,  and  every  new 
world  that  he  detects  appears  to  deepen  the  abyss  in 
which  it  floats.  Religion,  in  truth,  in  all  its  forms, 
announces  a  series  of  realities  surpassing  experience  and 
conception  :  all  its  terms,  in  every  language,  are  so  con- 
trived as  to  denote  this.  At  one  time  it  describes  divine 
things  in  negatives,  venturing  only  to  say  what  they 
are  not,  and  confessing  the  inadequacy  of  our  ideas  ; 
speaking  of  the  immensity  of  God,  that  is,  his  tran- 
scending all  our  measures  of  thought ;  of  the  immor- 
tality of  man,  that  is,  his  outliving  all  our  limits  of 


Religion  in  Parable.  275 

time  ;  of  the  'immaculate  sanctity  of  Christ  and  the 
spirits  of  the  just, — that  is,  their  maintenance  of  an 
ideal  perfection.  At  another  time  it  has  recourse  to 
superlatives,  and  turns  to  God  as  the  Best,  the  Greatest, 
the  Most  Holy.  And  it  is  clearly  impossible  that 
things  transcendental  and  superlative  can  come  before 
us  in  literal  definition  :  they  would  then  belie  their  own 
character,  and  become  determinable  by  the  formulas  of 
experience.  They  can  only  express  themselves  symboli- 
cally ;  and  how  truly  they  then  present  themselves  will 
depend  on  the  vastness  and  grandeur  of  the  emblem, 
and  the  wealth  of  the  soul  among  whose  thoughts  and 
affections  it  runs  with  suggestive  power.  At  best,  our 
approximation  is  humbling  enough.  By  the  law  of 
our  mind,  the  natural  perfections  of  God  seem  to  elude 
our  distinct  conception.  For  we  are  obliged  to  assign 
to  all  objects  a  position  in  time  and  space  :  we  cannot 
speak  of  the  Divine  existence  without  assigning  to  it  a 
when  and  a  where  ;  yet  are  assured  by  reflection  that 
this  is  an  illusion  of  our  own  ;  that  these  relations 
belong  only  to  our  perception,  not  to  Him  whom  we 
perceive ;  before  whom  duration  and  dimension  are 
nought ;  and  in  whose  Absolute  Being  dwell  all  things 
in  a  universal  Here,  and  all  events  in  the  everlasting 
Now. 

Nor  is  it  in  mere  magnitude  of  scale  that  the  immen- 
sity of  God  consists.  We  cannot  coldly  satisfy  ourselves 
with  the  mere  physical  belief  which  diffuses  his  being 

T2 


276  Religion  in  Parable. 

among  the  stars,  and  perpetuates  it  through  the  courses 
of  eternity.  In  this  kind  of  sublimity  there  is  nothing 
truly  divine  :  the  atheist's  mechanic  force,  or  dead 
dumb  nothingness,  might  have  the  same ;  and  it  were 
heathenish  thus  to  confound  the  gigantesque  with  the 
godlike.  God  is  a  Spirit :  and,  besides  this  boundless- 
ness of  dimension,  is  infinite  also  in  moral  intensity ; 
not,  if  we  may  say  so,  in  quantity  merely,  but  in 
quality  too.  Wisdom,  beauty,  holiness,  are  immeasurable 
things,  which  are  appreciable  by  pure  perceptions,  but 
which  no  rule  can  gauge,  and  no  argument  demonstrate. 
That  the  blush  of  morning  is  fair,  that  the  quietude  of 
grief  is  sacred,  that  the  heroism  of  conscience  is  noble, 
— who  will  undertake  to  prove  to  one  that  does  not  see 
it  ?  Nor  can  you  say  in  terms  of  measurement  how 
good  and  right  it  is  to  pity  the  wretched,  and  maintain 
fidelity  and  truth.  In  everything  which  we  profoundly 
revere  and  love,  there  appears  a  certain  infinitude  which 
fills  us  with  untiring  wonder  and  draws  us  into  per- 
petual aspiration.  What  unfathomable  depth  of  sanctity 
and  sorrow  in  the  features  of  a  Madonna !  What  ex- 
haustless  sublimity  streams  upon  the  eye  that  gazes 
devoutly  on  the  crucifix  !  What  fields  of  unspeakable 
freshness  and  purity  lie  open  in  the  full  eyes  of  a 
thoughtful  and  loving  child !  and  these  things  reside 
not  in  the  mere  material  form  or  colour,  or  size,  or  in 
anything  that  knowledge  can  estimate  or  words  define  ; 
but  in  a  spirit  gleaming  with  mysterious  expressiveness 


Religion  in  Parable.  277 

through  them  all.  It  is  in  no  mere  hyperbolic  sense 
that  we  speak  of  the  infinitude  of  the  moral  perfections 
of  God.  And  to  feel  this  is  to  feel  that  there  is  a 
profundity  entirely  beyond  our  present  view ;  that  the 
thoughts  of  him  we  now  possess  are  significant  of 
more  than  we  can  reach  ;  that  to  set  before  us  what- 
ever is  most  perfect  is,  for  the  time  being,  to  approach 
him  nearest ;  and  that  still  our  musings  are  always 
in  parable  ;  a  symbolic  presentation,  perhaps  logically 
false,  yet  most  divinely  true.  Religion  is  the  manifes- 
tation of  the  heart's  indestructible  faith  in  perfection ; 
and  so  it  must  ever  dwell  at  the  summit ;  and  that 
which  ceases  to  be  our  highest  belongs '  no  more  to  our 
religion,  and  yields  to  the  conception  that  transcends 
it.  In  no  slight  sense,  therefore,  the  superior  truth  of  a 
religion  consists  in  its  greater  majesty  and  loveliness ; 
and  he  who  best  awakens  the  sleeping  perceptions  of 
the  conscience  and  the  heart  and  penetrates  their  actual 
life  with  a  quickening  ideal,  reveals  the  most  of  God 
and  heaven.  And  what  has  ever  wrought  so  effectually 
for  this  end,  as  the  tales  of  inimitable  beauty,  by  which 
Jesus  melted  the  soul  of  nations  and  of  ages  ? 

Worship  too,  as  well  as  belief,  naturally  frames  itself 
into  parable.  It  instinctively  avoids  the  vain  and  harsh 
attempt  at  literal  speech ;  and  abandons  to  a  petty 
rationalism  that  critical  precision  which,  in  dread  of 
the  forms  of  error,  wanders  altogether  from  the  spirit 
of  truth.  At  best,  when  we  try  to  speak  to  God, 


278  Religion  in  Parable. 

religion  sinks  with  the  utterance,  and  seems  to  become 
poor :  the  pure  celestial  thoughts,  the  deep  and  solemn 
wants,  the  -sad  and  lowly  confession,  seem  to  come  with 
intolerable  friction  from  our  rough  human  voice  ;  and  the 
inner  skies  of  meditation,  so  vast  and  clear  in  silence, 
becloud  themselves  in  speech.  "When  Jesus  loosened 
the  imprisoned  tongue,  the  noisy  praises  of  the  healed 
man  were  less  expressive  than  the  dumb  looks  with 
which  before  he  had  gazed  up  on  the  face  of  Jesus. 
Language  hides  too  little  and  defines  too  much,  to 
bring  forth  truly  the  things  of  God  within  us :  so  that 
spoken  religion  is  apt  to  pass  into  theology ;  and  those 
who  have  it  most  upon  their  lips  are  very  apt  to  have  it 
least  within  their  hearts.  Its  constant  external  exposure 
to  the  petty  commerce  of  words  destroys  its  vastness 
and  ideality  within.  Hence  it  is  not  surprising  that 
the  shallowest  religion  has  been  usually  the  most 
voluble,  and  the  deepest  has  maintained  the  greatest 
frugality  of  speech ;  has  resorted  rather  to  the  worship 
of  signs  and  emblems,  beneath  whose  vagueness  the 
sanctities  of  faith  find  quiet  shelter.  The  stately 
minster,  whose  vault  overarches  the  dead,  and  whis- 
pers the  sighs  and  plaints  of  the  living ;  the  picture 
of  sacred  story,  giving  to  the  present  the  silent  beauty 
of  the  past  without  its  familiarity ;  the  gestures  of  holy 
men  bending  low  in  prayer;  the  organ's  chant,  con- 
tradicting no  man's  thought,  and  praj'ing  for  all  hearts 
with  a  sweet  and  mighty  voice  ;  these  have  been  spon- 


Religion  in  Parable.  279 

taneous  creations  from  the  soul  of  Christendom,  heaving 
with  the  inspiration  of  God,  and  labouring  to  speak, 
without  spoiling  a  love  so  holy.  These  symbols  have 
the  breadth  needful  for  the  affections,  and  cover  far 
more  than  any  words.  They  commit  no  one  to  thoughts 
that  may  not  be  true  to  him ;  they  speak,  not  to  him 
from  others,  but  from  himself  to  God,  taking  up  his 
own  emotions  more  faithfully  than  he  could  tell  them. 
They  awaken  within  him  his  own  highest,  without 
taking  it  out  of  his  hands,  and  shaping  it  precisely  for 
him.  It  is  the  same  with  all  the  deep  affections  of  our 
nature.  Who  can  dare  to  speak  to  sorrow  bowed  to  the 
earth,  or  to  penitence  in  its  inconsolable  shame  ?  The 
lips  seem  to  insult  the  heart ;  and,  after  vain  attempts, 
we  give  up  to  silence,  and  are  content  to  grasp  the  hand 
or  kiss  away  the  tears.  Of  death  too  we  feel  that  we 
cannot  fitly  speak ;  and  the  flowers  upon  the  grave,  or 
the  sculptured  emblem  in  the  church  significantly  hint 
at  cherished  memories  and  griefs  sharply  graven  on  the 
soul ;  or  if  words  are  used,  we  love  to  take  the  conse- 
crated phrase  of  Scripture,  or  at  least  the  unsoiled  and 
hidden  beauty  of  an  ancient  tongue.  All  which  may 
show  us  clearly,  that  there  is  no  prose  religion ;  that 
it  demands  an  ideal  beauty  as  its  native  and  rightful 
dress ;  and  cannot  purely  worship  except  in  emblem 
and  in  parable. 

Nor  can  even  our  Moral  Life  dispense  with  reflected 
images  and   similitudes.     In   its    first  and  unspoiled 


280  Religion  in  Parable. 

simplicity  indeed,  the  intuition  of  conscience  is  direct 
and  true,  and  in  the  competitions  of  impulse  never 
mistakes  the  better  for  the  worse ;  nor  does  it  need, 
ere  it  can  rightly  judge  them,  to  see  them  thrown  into 
an  external  picture,  or  dramatised  upon  a  foreign  stage. 
We  cannot  meet,  standing  face  to  face  in  our  own  mind, 
compassion  and  anger,  or  the  prompting  to  truth  and 
the  gain  of  a  lie,  without  knowing  their  relative  claims 
upon  our  will.  And  so  long  as  this  insight  is  healthily 
followed,  and  character  unfolds  itself  with  unstained 
purity,  this  immediate  discernment  of  the  right  will 
continue  unimpaired,  and  grow  in  -clearness  and  in 
range.  Nay,  it  is  not  even  lost  by  the  first  sin ;  for 
what  is  the  remorse  that  follows  it  but  the  straight  and 
true  vision  still,  only  of  the  shadowed  instead  of  the 
illumined  side  of  the  reality, — the  sorrowful  eclipse  of 
the  same  glorious  and  hopeful  light  ?  But  just  here  is 
the  crisis ;  it  is  the  last  chance  of  the  simple  unper- 
verted  vision.  Will  you  throw  yourself  open  to  all 
your  compunction,  and  go  back  with  it  at  once,  though 
with  bare  feet  and  over  thorny  ways,  to  the  station  you 
have  left  ?  Then  shall  you  retain  your  direct  perception 
of  the  good,  only  with  enfeejblcd  power  to  act  on  it. 
But  if,  as  must  be  feared,  you  haste  away  from  your 
sorrow  and  smother  the  keen  shame,  you  will  shift  from 
the  moral  to  the  sentient  and  selfish  point  of  view,  and, 
bribing  your  better  feeling  into  silence,  will  dress  up 
your  case  in  such  false  lights  as  to  deceive  yourself. 


Religion  in  Parable.  281 

And  thus  it  is  that  by  unfaithfulness  we  are  delivered 
over  to  self -justification,  and  forfeit  the  native  capacity 
for  looking  eye  to  eye  at  the  presence  and  proportions 
of  our  duty.  The  clear  discriminative  apprehension 
once  surrendered,  we  are  at  the  mercy  of  the  accidents 
of  emotion  ;  till,  swaying  to  and  fro  as  the  waves  may 
swing,  we  lose  our  count,  and  measure  our  course  no 
more,  but  drift  upon  the  current,  we  know  not  whither. 
When  the  moral  order  has  thus  fallen  to  pieces  in 
the  mind,  the  ruins  choke  the  avenues  of  direct 
entrance  to  the  conscience,  and  self-deception  resents 
the  very  approach  of  remonstrance.  "Who  does  not 
know  the  blinding  power  of  pride  ?  who  will  undertake, 
by  mere  onset  of  rebuke,  to  carry  the  entrenchments 
of  egotism  ?  It  is  rare  indeed  that  others'  righteous 
indignation  draws  the  tears  of  penitence  from  the 
wrong-doer;  so  quick  is  the  demon  of  self-excuse  to 
leap  in  between  and  freeze  them  at  their  fount.  But, 
while  it  is  the  curse  of  sin  that  it  spreads  a  film  on  the 
eye  turned  inwards,  and  works  in  the  darkness  it  has 
made,  it  leaves  the  outward  gaze  of  moral  discernment 
for  a  longer  time  undimmed  :  so  that  fallen  men  can 
still  be  critics  of  the  upright,  and  the  conscience,  blind 
to  its  own  wreck,  can  mark  even  a  slight  deflection 
in  another.  Shall  we  be  angry  at  this,  and  forbid  the 
worse  to  pronounce  judgment  on  the  better  ?  See  rather 
to  what  happy  use  you  may  turn  this  feature,  if  only 
you  have  the  ingenuity  of  love  and  the  clearness  of 


282  Religion  in  Parable. 

the  prophet's  insight.  You  can  avail  yourself  of  the 
offender's  remaining  perception  to  make  him  judge 
himself.  Instead  of  dwelling  on  his  own  individual 
case,  and  so  touching  the  springs  of  vanity  and  resent- 
ment, you  c"an  withdraw  him  from  the  personal  point 
of  view,  and  let  its  confusing  disquietudes  sleep.  You 
have  but  to  set  up  before  him  the  portrait  of  another 
personality,  into  which  you  weave  the  colours  and 
adjust  the  relations  of  his  character;  and  in  that 
mirror  he  sees  the  deformities  he  had  not  felt,  and 
abhors  himself  at  secondhand.  The  child  who  yields 
to  a  burst  of  anger  or  a  seduction  of  selfishness  without 
a  twinge  of  reproach  will  be  rivetted  by  the  tale  from 
which  the  same  passions  look  at  him  from  another's 
eyes :  his  cheek  will  flush,  his  sobs  will  quicken,  with 
the  thrill  of  a  true  moral  sympathy;  and  when  at 
last  it  breaks  upon  him,  as  the  terrible  resemblance 
deepens,  that  for  that  picture  he  might  himself  have 
sat,  the  inward  wave  of  retributive  justice  is  beaten 
back  upon  his  own  conscience  and  floods  it  with  re- 
pentance. Every  wise  parent  is  led  by  the  tact  of  love 
to  discover  the  power  of  such  dramatic  presentations  of 
life,  and  acquire  the  skill  to  place  them  on  the  stage  of 
the  child's  fancy.  And  when,  in  Jerusalem,  the  poet- 
king,  wrapt  in  a  cloud  of  passion,  added  crime  to  crime 
without  a  touch  of  shame, — treachery  to  license  and 
murder  to  both, — the  prophet,  with  ready  insight  into 
that  rich  ideal  nature,  drew  the  picture  of  the  poor 


Religion  in  Parable.  283 

man's  ewe-lamb  that  grew  up  with  his  children  and 
drank  of  his  cup,  only  to  he  slain  for  the  rich  man's 
table  ;  and  by  the  tension  of  indignant  pity  shivered 
the  crust  of  guilty  illusion,  and  flashed  conviction 
home  upon  the  conscience  with  the  words  "  Thou  art 
the  man  !  "  Thus  may  the  parables  of  the  moral  life 
beguile  us  out  of  our  darkness,  and  force  us  once 
more  to  be  impartial  witnesses  of  our  own  character. 
They  fix  in  a  secondary  image  what  we  had  let  slip  in 
immediate  feeling.  They  plant  us  clear  of  the  fierce 
crossing  rays  of  the  momentary  position,  and  serve  as 
optical  purifiers  to  ward  off  all  except  the  light  we 
need ;  and  show  us  again,  at  visual  distance,  some  of 
the  "  things  hidden  "  from  us  by  their  very  closeness  to 
ourselves.  Their  function  is  thus  like  that  of  expe- 
rience itself;  which  is  never  a  present,  but  always  a 
posthumous  teacher ;  and  delivers  its  lesson  by  chang- 
ing the  position  which  misleads  us,  and  in  parting  us 
from  the  past  reveals  it  more  distinctly  to  the  view. 


xxn. 

nor  Woman  in  Christ 


LUKE  xx.  35,  36. 

"They  who  shall  be  accounted  worthy  to  obtain  that  world  and  the 
resurrection  of  the  dead,  neither  marry  nor  are  given  in  marriage  ;  neither 
can  they  die  any  more  ;  for  they  are  equal  to  the  angels  ;  and  are  the 
children  of  God,  being  the  children  of  the  resurrection." 

IN  the  representations  of  Christ  by  the  great  masters 
of  sacred  art,  it  is  seldom  that  you  complain  of  any 
preponderance  of  manly  strength.  The  fault  is  rather 
of  the  opposite  kind ;  an  excess  of  feminine  gentleness 
and  grace ;  a  fineness  of  feature  and  clearness  of  brow 
and  soft-flowing  hair,  that  give  too  much  to  beauty, 
and  leave  not  enough  for  force.  It  is  far  from  being 
true,  indeed,  that  this  prevailing  character  carries  with 
it  of  necessity  the  impression  of  weakness.  It  is 
redeemed  however  from  this  danger  by  the  infusion 
not  of  manlike  but  of  godlike  elements;  intellectual 
majesty,  heavenly  serenity,  spiritual  depth.  Even  in 
the  portraiture  of  his  sufferings, — the  Ecce  Homo,— 
the  garden,  and  the  cross, — it  is  usual  to  find  an 


Neither  Man  nor  Woman  in  Christ  Jesus.   285 

intense  passive  susceptibility,  immediately  combined 
with  a  divine  repose ;  without  any  intervention  of 
wrestling  energy  and  personal  power.  It  is  as  if  a 
kind  of  slight  was  put  upon  the  special  attributes  of 
men, — the  moral  solidity,  the  resolute  will,  the  strenu- 
ous fidelity  to  trust,  which  are  the  noblest  of  their 
more  distinctive  marks ; — as  if  these,  however  justly 
held  in  honour  in  human  society  as  the  main  reliance 
of  the  world,  were  incapable  of  being  worked  up  into 
the  type  of  sublimest  life. 

Nor  can  we  fail  to  trace  the  same  peculiarity  of 
Christian  ideal  in  the  legends  of  his  birth  and  the 
doctrine  of  his  double  nature.  "Whatever  was  human 
in  him  was  his  heritage  from  Mary ;  and  could  be 
nothing  but  the  pure,  the  gracious,  the  tender  and 
trustful,  the  suffering  and  patient.  And  the  higher 
attributes  that  mingled  an  ineffable  dignity  with  these 
and  turned  them  from  weaknesses  into  powers,  belonged 
to  his  celestial  nature,  and  proclaimed  him  Son  of 
God.  "What  is  this  but  to  say  that  in  him  the  love 
and  pity  of  the  woman's  heart  were  straightway  blended 
with  the  thought  and  holiness  of  God;  passing  by 
and  omitting  the  more  voluntary  energies  and  self- 
asserting  personality  of  men  ?  The  Christendom  which 
invented  these  legends  must  evidently  have  been 
wearied  with  a  world  of  violence,  passion,  and  selfish- 
ness,— of  masculine  ambitions  and  grasping  resolve ; 
must  have  sighed  for  some  form  of  strength  which 


286  Neither  Man  nor   Woman 

might  consist  with ^ reverence  and  affection;  and  have 
felt  that  only  He  who,  while  consciously  at  one  with 
the  Highest,  was  touched  also  by  sympathy  with  the 
frail,  could  escape  the  self-idolatry  of  an  age  that  had 
hardened  itself  against  hoth.  In  a  world  trodden  down 
by  Roman  legions,  and  ruled  by  competition  of  cor- 
ruption, a  world  where  all  the  force  seemed  Satanic  and 
the  refinement  enervating  and  impure,  it  is  intelligible 
that  refreshment  should  be  found  in  an  image  of 
humanity  carrying  divine  insight  and  resource  into 
the  domestic  retreats  of  sorrow  and  affection. 

The  picture  which  has  thus  set  itself  in  the  Christian 
imagination,  though  owing  some  of  its  lineaments  to 
after-touches  of  grateful  thought,  is  legitimate  and 
historical  in  its  outline.  Even  Paul,  who  otherwise 
knows  nothing  of  the  personal  portraiture  of  his  Lord, 
appeals  to  the  disciples  "  by  the  meekness  and  gentle- 
ness of  Christ " ;  and  though  the  gospels  are  not 
without  examples  of  authoritative  energy  and  terrible 
invective,  still  it  is  not  these  that  we  feel  to  be  half 
so  characteristic  as  the  blessing  on  the  child,  the  call 
to  the  weary,  the  look  upon  the  guilty,  the  lesson  of 
the  field-flower,  and  the  forgiveness  on  the  cross. 
When  he  corrects  the  morals  of  his  time,  it  is  to 
render  them  passionless  and  self-denying ;  when  he 
ascends  to  the  springs  of  its  devotion,  it  is  to  make 
them  overflow  with  more  copious  love  and  clearer  trust; 
when  he  opens  the  contents  of  human  hope,  and  lets  us 


In  Christ  Jesus.  287 

see  his  image  of  final  and  perfect  life,  it  is  a  vision  of 
natures  pure  as  the  angels,  and  not  called  to  die  any 
more.  Himself  the  Lamb  of  God,  meekly  led  away 
to  sacrifice,  he  has  so  endeared  and  consecrated  the 
forms  of  affectionate  and  self-forgetful  goodness,  that 
the  old  Pagan  and  even  Hebrew  notions  of  God's 
character  have  become  uncongenial  to  a  Christian 
mood :  we  feel  it  cold  and  hard  to  speak  exclusively 
of  "  virtue," — (the  right  life  of  manhood), — of  justice, 
of  rectitude, — and  require  to  ascend  into  the  higher 
and  warmer  conceptions  of  sanctity  and  holy  peace, — 
of  faith,  and  hope,  and  charity. 

This  gentle,  feminine  type  of  religious  character 
owes  nothing  to  the  Jewish  parentage  of  the  gospel ; 
and  it  is  in  proportion  as  you  take  your  impression 
from  John  and  Paul  rather  than  from  the  Judaic 
records  of  Matthew  and  Mark,  that  the  ideal  disengages 
itself  into  clearness.  It  is  the  general  tendency  of 
strict  monotheistic  religions  to  bring  out  the  force, 
but  overpower  the  finer  susceptibilities  of  our  nature ; 
to  make  zealots  of  firm  will,  to  bind  hosts  together  by 
a  conquering  purpose,  to  form  brotherhoods  of  intimate 
fidelity,  rather  than  to  melt  the  soul  with  compre- 
hensive pity,  or  inspire  a  tender  reverence  for  even 
the  weak  and  wandering.  The  monarchy  of  God  in 
heaven  repeats  or  realizes  itself  in  a  theocracy  on 
earth  :  he  commands  rather  than  inspires,  or  inspires 
chiefly  to  command :  his  prophets  are  always  men, 


288  Neither  Man  nor  Woman 

and  their  message  is  political:  nature  and  mankind 
are  his  fabric  and  his  instrument,  detached  from  his 
being,  but  subject  to  his  sovereignty,  and  constrained 
to  do  his  will.  The  relation  of  man  to  God  is  one  of 
obedience  more  than  of  communion  :  its  sentiment  is 
founded,  not  on  their  nearness  and  kindred,  but  on  their 
distance  and  contrast :  far  as  the  heaven  is  from  the 
earth,  incapable  of  blending  as  the  East  is  with  the 
West,  are  the  thoughts  of  the  human  spirit  in  respect 
of  the  Divine.  The  Hebrew  imagination  is  ever  on 
the  strain  to  put  an  infinite  space  between  the  majesty 
of  the  Creator  and  the  subjection  of  the  creatures ;  to 
magnify  him  and  humble  them  ;  to  seat  his  presence 
above  the  circle  of  the  sky  and  spread  the  inhabitants 
of  the  earth  "  as  grasshoppers  "  beneath  him.  Nor 
is  this  conception  of  natural  distance  contradicted  or 
removed  by  the  closer  and  tenderer  images  with  which 
prophets  sweeten  and  diversify  their  song.  They  all 
imply,  not  inward  congeniality,  but  outward  protection  ; 
the  father  of  the  son,  the  mother  of  the  nurseling,  the 
husbandman  of  his  favourite  vine  ;  and  all  are  founded 
on  the  feeling  of  interval  between  two  natures,  not 
of  resemblance  ;  affinity  itself  being  used  to  express 
not  so  much  the  identity  of  kind  as  the  affection  of 
individuals.  Quite  in  harmony  with  this  conscious- 
ness of  natural  distance,  is  the  belief  that  God's  com- 
munications with  our  race  are  always  through  some 
mediation,  of  angel  or  prophet,  empowered  to  bridge 


In  Christ  Jesus.  -289 

the  chasm,  and  open  a  way  into  nature  from  the  realm 
beyond.  The  Arab  learns  of  Mahomet,  and  Mahomet 
of  Gabriel,  and  Gabriel  alone  of  Allah.  The  Catholic 
listens  to  the  priest;  the  priest  to  the  apostles;  the 
apostles  to  Christ ;  and  Christ  himself  to  Moses  and 
Elijah,  who  come  to  him  from  the  Lord  and  world  of 
life.  Special  interposition  implies  ordinary  separation  ; 
and  only  in  the  absence  of  immediate  communion  can 
mediate  messages  find  room  to  pass  to  and  fro. 

This  Judaicr  conception,  of  perfect  distinction  be- 
tween God  and  man,  as  of  two  individuals  existing 
quite  apart,  unless  by  exceptional  provision  for  meet- 
ing, is  favourable  to  strong  moral  conviction  and 
masculine  resolve.  It  is  of  the  very  essence  of  the 
sentiment  of  duty,  to  feel  that  we  are  charged  with  a 
trust  from  God ;  and  a  trust  can  be  devolved  upon  us 
only  from  one  who  i's  outside  of  us,  and  knows  that  we 
have  an  isolated  power  of  our  own.  He  gives  the  law, 
for  us  to  execute :  he  is  there,  and  we  are  here  :  he 
leaves  us  a  field  whose  tillage  or  whose  barrenness 
is  ours ;  and  conscience,  in  every  utterance  of  self- 
reproach,  confesses  the  power  of  self-command.  This 
consciousness,  that  he  is  lord  of  something,  inspires  a 
man  with  self-asserting  energy ;  quickens  his  sense  of 
obligation  ;  and  makes  him  aware,  as  he  casts  his  eye 
over  that  which  is  committed  to  his  charge,  that  he  has 
much  to  answer  for  in  the  good  or  evil  administration 
of  this  world.  His  sphere  of  duty  is  his  sphere  of 


290  Neither  Man  nor  Woman 

pmver :  in  ruling  it,  he  holds  a  kingly  attitude  towards 
all  that  it  contains ;  and  whether  it  be  a  household, — a 
business, — a  tenantry, — or  an  empire,  that  is  given  him 
to  keep  in  order,  it  lies  beneath  him,  subject  to  his 
•will,  trusting  to  his  fidelity,  appealing  to  his  affection. 
The  delegate  of  a  law  above  him,  he  has  to  give  and 
be  a  law  to  those  beneath  him  ;  rendering  it  flexible  to 
their  nature  and  capacity,  yet  ever  true  to  the  measure 
of  eternal  right.  This  is  always  the  peculiarity  of  the 
purely  moral  view  of  life :  man,  deputed  for  his 
separate  work,  it  sets  apart  from  God,  and  each 
man,  as  bearing  his  own  burden,  from  every  other. 
It  produces  the  sense  of  inalienable,  lonely  responsi- 
bilities, giving  infinite  importance  to  every  soul  that 
carries  them.  It  sees  around  it  a  universe  of  detached 
persons,  to  no  two  of  whom  is  just  the  same  shade 
of  sentiment  and  action  due.  It  is  founded  on  the 
differences  of  beings  and  of  things,  and  directs  a  dis- 
criminating regard  to  each  according  to  its  nature  and 
character.  The  conscientious,  turning  the  eye  within, 
feel  distinctions  and  scruples  which  others  slur;  and, 
directing  the  gaze  without,  perceive  moral  lights  and 
shadows  hid  from  less  fastidious  vision.  It  is  ever  their 
tendency  to  remain  at  a  critical  distance,  just  and  self- 
possessed  ;  severe  to  themselves  and  not  tender  to  the 
world.  Or,  if  God  has  given  them,  not  only  the  pure 
conscience,  but  also  the  gentle  heart,  they  will  perhaps 
have  pity  to  spare  for  sin  as  well  as  sorrow;  provided 


In  Christ  Jesus.  291 

however  it  be  sin  deep  and  dark  enough  to  look  like 
misery,  and  baffle  all  estimate  :  for  an  ethical  benevo- 
lence will  often  spread  a  profuse  compassion  on  the 
lowest  wickedness,  while  habitually  censorious  to  the 
slight  faults  of  neighbours,  or,  it  may  be,  to  the  mere 
divergent  tastes  of  a  younger  generation. 

That  this  temper  of  mind  and  mode  of  regarding 
life  is  rather  Stoical  than  specifically  Christian,  and 
more  properly  Jewish  than  either,  must  be  felt  by 
every  one  whose  gospel  is  defined  by  John  or  Paul.  It 
gives  us  simply  human  morality,  with  a  divine  sanc- 
tion : — a  noble  gift,  truly ;  but  still  securing  only  half 
our  life,  its  manly  vigour,  its  self-regulation,  its  clear 
justice  and  fidelity;  and  leaving  as  yet  untraced  the 
other  half,  its  feminine  dependence,  its  tact  of  love,  its 
flush  of  enthusiasm,  and  whatever  is  characteristic  of 
Him  who  opened  his  lessons  with  the  beatitudes  and 
closed  them  with  the  legacy  of  peace.  To  fall  into 
any  harmony  with  these,  the  soul  must  assume  quite 
another  attitude,  and  enter  into  quite  another  thought 
of  God ; — an  attitude,  not  of  lordship  over  the  duties 
beneath,  but  of  captivity  to  the  divine  solicitations 
above  ; — a  thought  of  God,  not  as  sending  instructions 
through  an  outer  medium,  or  from  afar  in  time  or 
place,  but  as  our  immediate  living  Light,  as  the  holy 
Spirit  of  our  spirits,  the  everlasting  ground  of  grace 
?vud  beauty  and  love.  In  contrast  with  the  moral 
impulse  of  the  mind  which  looks  at  the  differences  of 

n  -2 


292  Neither  Man  nor  Woman 

things,  is  the  devout  which  seeks  their  unity ;  which 
ascends  beyond  all  diffracted  or  intercepted  rays  to  the 
primal  light  that  flings  them  ;  and,  instead  of  remain- 
ing outside  spectator  of  other  heings,  delights  to  lose 
itself  in  the  embrace  of  the  All  in  All,  and  become  the 
organ  of  the  Eternal  Will.  "VVe  sigh  for  a  conscious 
union  with  God,  which  is  far  from  being  implied  in 
mere  obedience  to  him  ;  nay,  which  is  excluded  till 
obedience  gives  place,  to  a  freer  and  less  reluctant 
harmony  with  him.  To  know  that  we  belong  to 
another,  and  that  other,  God ;  to  hear  him  ever  claim- 
ing us  in  low,  near  whispers,  dissolved  through  every 
silence  and  still  shooting  on  us  amid  the  voices  of 
men;  to  see  him  gleaming  on  us,  not  only  in  the 
exposed  places  of  solitude,  but  through  the  thick 
foliage  of  events,  like  the  horizontal  sun,  flooding  the 
open  desert  with  crimson,  or  piercing  the  forest  with  a 
patterned  glory  ;  to  read  a  meaning  that  is  his  in 
every  aspect  of  life  and  nature,  and  go  forth  to  meet  it 
when  it  is  hopeful  and  reconciled,  or  droop  our  eyes 
before  it,  if  it  be  sad  with  a  shade  of  pity ;  to  feel  our 
whole  being  dipped  in  his  spirit  and  imbued  with  the 
sacred  tincture  ever  more  : — this  is  the  surrender  to 
him  that  makes  the  life  of  holy  communion, — that 
completes  and  balances  the  soul  on  its  diviner  side, 
and  that  gave  that  feminine  depth  and  gentleness  to 
Christ.  Without  this  mood  of  contemplative  oneness 
with  God, — this  genial  melting  of  our  life  in  his,  there 


In  Christ  Jesits.  293 

may  be  in  us  no  want  of  masculine  sense  and  energy, 
of  clear  truth  and  honour,  of  faithful  constancy  under 
temptation ;  but  there  will  also  be  a  Jewish  hardness 
and  narrowness  of  mind,  a  dry  unmellowed  temper,  an 
egotistic  and  critical  irreverence  for  all  that  will  not 
submit  to  our  survey.  If  aspiration  is  not  to  die  out 
from  our  religion, — if  affection  and  self-oblivion  are  not 
to  fly  away  and  leave  it  empty  of  all  diviner  habitant, — 
if  the  love  of  God,  as  a  passion  and  a  power,  is  not  to 
be  insultingly  dismissed  among  the  romances  of  the 
past,  we  must  open  a  more  hospitable  heart  to  the 
gospel  of  the  Spirit,  and  more  deeply  enter  into  the 
life  of  the  living  God.  It  is  a  significant  fact,  that  in 
all  religious  systems  which,  instead  of  representing 
God  chiefly  as  moral  Lawgiver,  are  fond  of  dwelling 
on  him  as  the  Holy  Spirit,  there  the  prophets  are,  or 
at  least  may  be,  women.  So  was  it  among  the  Phry- 
gian Christians  of  old,  who  developed  the  doctrine  of 
the  Paraclete.  So  has  it  ever  been  among  the  Society 
of  Friends,  who  keep  silence  till  the  Spirit  speaks.  So 
is  it  when  the  Catholic  estatica  attests  the  supernatural 
grace  that  still  penetrates  and  consecrates  the  organism 
of  the  visible  Church.  If  the  fact  shows,  on  the  one 
hand,  the  dangers  of  a  faith  overbalanced  on  this  oppo- 
site side,  it  shows,  on  the  other,  that  the  view  of  God 
most  cherished  by  a  tender  piety,  and  most  cherishing 
it  again,  is  the  mystic  rather  than  the  moral, — that 
which  envelopes  us  in  communion,  rather  than  sends 


294  Neither  Man  nor  Woman 

us  out  on  errands  of  obedience, — which  takes  up  our 
personality  into  a  higher  sphere  instead  of  detaching 
it  for  separate  work  in  a  lower.  Morality  defines  down- 
ward the  duty  of  each ;  lives  in  the  midst  of  human 
and  natural  details ;  attaches  itself  to  the  particular 
persons  and  concrete  businesses  of  life.  Devotion 
opens  its  arms  upwards  to  the  Source  of  all;  merges 
itself  in  the  divine  and  supernatural  Infinity;  sighs 
after  the  universal  spirit  of  all  reality  and  ground  of 
all  appearance  and  secret  tincture  of  all  good  and 
beauty.  For  neither  the  masculine  concentration  of 
the  one,  nor  the  feminine  diffusion  of  the  other,  is 
our  nature  exclusively  designed ;  to  neither  can  it  be 
given  up  without  one-sidedness  and  perilous  excess.  If 
they  are  rarely  harmonised,  it  is  not  for  want  of  a 
visible  ideal  or  of  a  fitting  capacity.  In  Christ,  at 
once  the  Son  of  Man  and  Son  of  God,  they  were 
blended  without  discord  or  interference, — the  majesty 
and  the  meekness, — the  force  for  this  world,  the  tender 
mingling  with  another, — the  percussion  upon  human 
evil  and  the  melting  into  divine  communion.  And  in 
the  higher  mind  of  us  all  the  possibility  exists  of 
similarly  blending  all  the  seeming  opposites  that  make 
up  the  equilibrium  of  goodness,  and  drawing  into  one 
nature  the  fair  and  happy  contrasts  that  begin  with 
distribution,  only  that  mutual  fascination  may  help 
them  to  union.  What  but  our  own  low  ideal  is  to 
hinder  the  moulding  of  our  defective  and  broken 


In  Christ  Jesus.  295 

humanity  into  more  Christ-like  completeness  ?  Shall 
we  never  rise  to  an  inflexible  moral  enthusiasm,  un- 
tainted by  personal  passion;  to  an  indignation  at 
wrong,  kindled  only  by  reverence  for  the  right,  and 
made  persuasive  by  sympathy  with  the  wronged ;  to  a 
transparent  simplicity  unspoiled  by  the  deepest  insight 
and  the  largest  intellectual  view ;  to  the  fusion  of 
quick  affections  with  unconquerable  will ;  to  a  passion 
for  beauty  so  loving  as  to  labour  in  the  midst  of 
deformity;  to  such  inward  union  with  the  Highest 
as  shall  brace  the  soul  to  undismayed  compassion  for 
the  lowest  ?  Are  the  graces  of  character  never  to  have 
any  vigour,  or  its  vigour  any  grace  ?  Are  the  heroes  to 
be  for  ever  rude,  and  the  saints  for  ever  sickly  ?  Not 
unless  the  cross  is  to  be  forgotten,  and  its  very  shadow 
to  vanish  from  the  earth.  So  long  as  it  stands  visible 
and  fixes  any  venerating  look,  no  poor  fragment  of 
spiritual  good  can  ever  content  the  conscience  :  without 
aspiring  to  the  whole,  we  fall  at  once  from  the  disciple's 
place  ;  and  when  our  all  is  done,  we  must  still  feel 
ourselves  a  great  way  off.  To  have  neither  restlessness 
nor  apathy,  but  pass  freely  between  energy  and  repose, 
at  the  call  to  act  or  the  need  to  suffer;  to  bind  the 
wounds  without  indulgence  to  the  sins  of  men ;  to 
have  no  tears  but  those  of  pity, — to  utter  no  reproach 
but  as  the  true  interpreter  of  conscience, — to  send 
forth  no  cry  that  does  not  soften  into  prayer ;  to  mingle 
with  the  beauty  of  the  world,  yet  find  it  but  the  symbol 


296  Neither  Man  nor  Woman  in  Christ  Jesns. 

of  a  more  transcendent  glory ; — only  brings  us  some- 
what nearer  to  that  marvellous  life  in  which  the 
contradictions  of  thought  and  the  conflicts  of  feeling 
formed  the  very  harmony  of  a  nature  lifted  into  perfect 
peace.  His  own  picture  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is 
the  unconscious  reflection  of  himself; — the  finished 
and  all-blending  sphere,  where  the  differences  are  not 
indeed  lost,  but  separated  no  more,  between  the  woman 
and  the  man,  the  elder  and  the  child ;  and  all  are  as 
the  angels  of  God,  that  serve  him  with  the  wholeness 
of  a  balanced  nature.  So  conceived,  that  kingdom  is 
neither  distant  nor  future  ;  in  its  germ  and  possibility, 
it  is  already  within  us.  And  when,  in  realizing  it, 
we  have  "  risen  from  the  death  of  sin  to  the  life  of 
righteousness,"  we  shall  have  passed,  through  that 
resurrection,  into  the  singleness  of  spirit  which  belongs 
to  the  "  children  of  God  that  cannot  die  any  more." 


xxin. 

C(p  $0fawrs  xrf  fofce. 


GAL.  T.  22. 
"The  fruit  of  the  Spirit  is  love,  joy,  peace." 

IF  these  be  the  fruit  of  the  Spirit,  they  cannot  be 
mere  matters  of  temperament.  They  have  a  higher 
origin  than  a  physical  frame  happily  moulded,  or  even 
a  will  dutifully  disposed.  There  is  something  in  them 
of  more  heavenly  fire ;  lighting  up  our  human  nature, 
but  not  entirely  kindled  there  ;  leaving  with  us  the 
blessing,  but  rendering  back  to  God  the  praise.  When 
philosophy  gives  an  account  of  the  human  soul,  it 
can  find  only  constitutional  propensities  and  voluntary 
acquisitions.  When  we  interrogate  Christianity,  we 
are  told,  besides,  of  communicated  sanctities ;  states 
of  mind  which  inheritance  cannot  give,  or  resolution 
command ;  which  need  some  touch  of  God  to  wake 
them  up  ;  which  are  above  us,  and  yet  ours ;  which 
do  our  work,  and  yet  are  better  than  our  will;  and 


298  The  Powers  of  Love. 

seem  to  lie  on  the  border-land  of  communion  between 
the  finite  and  the  Infinite  spirit.  That  this  language, 
which  has  approved  itself  to  the  deepest  and  devoutest 
men  in  Christendom,  should  be  all  a  senseless  mys- 
ticism, is  an  opinion  which  modest  thought  will  be 
reluctant  to  maintain.  There  is  something  strange 
and  unintelligible  in  the  anxiety  of  a  pretended  ration- 
alism to  get  rid  of  the  inspiring  God,  to  make  sure 
that  our  nature  will  be  quite  let  alone,  to  environ  it 
with  an  impassable  ring-fence,  and  plant  sentry-boxes 
of  argument  all  round,  to  exclude  the  possible  encroach- 
ments of  anything  Divine.  If  the  apostolic  language 
expressed  no  other  truth,  it  would  at  least  describe, 
with  simplicity  and  faithfulness,  the  complete  trans- 
formation which  religion  effects  in  the  original  instincts 
and  feelings  ;  how,  by  conquering,  it  glorifies  them  ; 
and  turns  them  from  animal  impulses  into  moral  and 
spiritual  powers.  To  a  mind  uplifted  in  divine  con- 
version, and,  through  past  toil  and  patience,  dwelling 
in  a  light  above  the  storms  of  sin  and  sorrow,  a  new 
being  seems  to  have  arisen ;  a  thick  dream  to  have 
broken  away ;  a  drowsy  pressure  to  have  flown  from 
the  head,  a  sultry  leaden  cloud  to  have  been  swept 
from  off  the  freshened  heart.  Its  old  affections,  though 
called  by  the  same  names,  appear  but  counterfeits  of 
those  which  are  ascendant  now ;  poor  masks,  serving 
for  the  mimicry,  but  mocking  the  reality,  of  life.  How 
indeed  is  it  possible  to  disguise  from  ourselves  the 


The  Powers  of  Love.  299 

pretences  of  which,  till  the  spirit  wakes  to  the  inner 
truth  of  things,  we  are  half- willing  dupes  ?  how  much 
society  there  is  without  communion,  and  laughter 
without  gladness,  and  quiet  without  escape  from  care  ! 
The  acts  and  hahits  which  should  flow  from  the  affec- 
tions of  the  soul,  spring  often  only  from  its  misery. 
The  good  fellowship  that  seems  so  cordial,  warming 
the  lips  and  hrightening  the  eye, — how  often  is  it  a 
flight  from  self  rather  than  a  quest  of  others,  the 
opiate  of  conscience  rather  than  the  wine  of  Love ! 
The  mirth  that  rings  with  so  genial  a  sound,  and  seems 
to  flash  from  heart  to  heart,  is  it  all  like  the  true  glee 
of  childhood  ?  or  can  you  not  discern  a  false  and  eager 
heat,  as  though  something  were  thrust  down  that  the 
gladness  may  leap  up  ?  And  the  composure  and  self- 
possession  of  men,  is  it  not  sometimes  a  mere  negative 
tranquillity, — the  calm  of  them  that  sleep  ? — and  at 
others,  a  triumph  of  intellect  smoothing  the  troubled 
fancy,  and  of  will  refusing  to  betray  ? — in  neither  case, 
the  serenity  of  inward  affection  and  living  content  ? 
The  retreat  from  secret  thought,  the  restlessness  of 
wasted  power,  the  suspicions  of  injured  nature,  the 
aching  of  unsatisfied  capacity,  are  always  at  work  with 
silent  free-masonry  among  men  ;  hurrying  them  about 
to  clasp  hands  with  one  another  in  conspiracy  against 
themselves ;  and  leading  them  to  mimic  the  look  of 
things  that  would  appear,  were  they  a  world  of  faithful 
souls.  The  disguise  is  transparent  to  the  eye  of  purity ; 


300  The  Powers  of  Love. 

which  looks  on  the  drama  as  on  children  acting  the 
wedding  and  the  funeral  in  the  nursery  ;  occupied  with 
the  scenery  and  the  pageantry,  heedless  of  the  meaning 
and  the  pathos. 

Even  the  genuine  instincts  and  healthy  sentiments  of 
men,  freed  from  all  corruption  of  pretence,  undergo  a 
complete  and  noble  change,  when  living  in  the  atmo- 
sphere of  a  religious  soul;  and  always  fail  of  some 
portion  of  their  grace  and  power,  till  hreathed  upon  by 
this,  their  natural  air.  We  are  glad  enough  indeed, 
in  a  world  like  ours,  to  •welcome  a  loving  heart  on 
almost  any  terms.  "When  the  sickness  is  at  its  height, 
we  do  not  ask  the  physician  for  his  diploma ;  when  the 
bleeding  lie  so  thick  upon  the  field,  we  must  accept 
any  nurse  that  will  bind  their  wounds  ;  and  of  him 
that  lifts  the  faint  we  demand  not  whether  he  be  a 
Samaritan.  It  were  ungracious  to  complain  of  such 
charity  as  can  be  found  to  soothe  the  grievances,  and 
shame  the  selfishness,  of  life.  Only,  the  gentle  mind 
is  ever  open  and  docile  too ;  they  that  love  well  are 
thankful  to  love  better ;  and  in  precise  proportion  as 
the  spirit  of  affection  is  elevated,  is  its  work  more 
surely  achieved,  and  its  experience  more  truly  peaceful. 

There  is  a  humane  love,  which  constitutes  the  hum- 
blest and  most  frequent  form  of  unselfish  feeling.  It 
finds  its  objects  among  the  miserable,  and  attaches 
itself  to  them  in  proportion  to  their  woes.  In  human 
pity  there  is  a  strange  combination  of  repulsion  and 


The  Powers  of  Love.  301 

attraction,  which  it  is  the  paradox  of  philosophy  to 
state,  and  the  mercy  of  God  to  ordain :  it  cannot  en- 
dure the  sight  of  wretchedness,  and  yet  can  never  leave 
it.  To  no  ear  are  the  cries  of  anguish  so  piercing; 
yet  it  hovers  within  the  circle  where  they  wander, 
and  flies  to  the  centre  whence  they  come.  To  no  eye 
does  manhood  struck  down  in  its  strength  and  wasting 
on  its  bed,  or  the  child  decrepid  with  hunger  and 
neglect,  or  the  wife  deserted  and  broken  beneath  the 
burden  of  life,  present  a  sight  so  sad ;  but  it  is 
fascinated  to  the  spot,  and  lives  amid  the  haunts  it 
dreads.  To  stop  that  ear,  to  shut  that  eye,  would 
seem  to  give  an  easy  promise  of  relief;  nor  is  there 
anything  to  hinder  except  that  they  would  cease  to  be 
the  organs  of  humanity,  and  would  be  degraded  into 
the  instruments  of  selfishness :  and  so,  it  is  no  more 
possible  to  get  them  closed,  than  to  persuade  the 
sobbing  child  to  put  aside  the  story  that  draws  forth 
its  tears.  It  is  needless  to  say  what  we  owe  to  the 
soul  of  compassion  ;  of  how  many  infant  ills  it  has 
rocked  the  cradle  till  they  fell  into  the  sweet  sleep  of 
recovery;  of  how  many  a  cruel  passion  it  has  stayed 
the  uplifted  arm  ;  what  old  and  giant  oppressions  it 
has  challenged  to  the  lists,  and  laid  low  with  the  sling 
and  stone  of  its  youthful  indignation.  It  is  indeed  an 
emotion,  to  be  incapable  of  which  were  to  be  less  than 
huni^n.  It  is  the  great  power  which  lifts  the  heavy 
mass  of  mankind  above  the  gross  interests,  the  un- 


302  The  Powers  of  Love. 

worthy  sloth,  the  heartless  indifference,  towards  which 
they  are  else  continually  sinking.  And  just  when  the 
low  temper  of  society  and  greedy  negligence  of  men 
have  brought  us  to  believe  in  self-love  alone,  some 
sudden  outbreak  of  this  passion  breaks  through  the 
crust  of  our  philosophy,  and  proclaims  the  hidden  fires 
of  our  nature  that  fuse  the  cement  and  shatter  the 
structures  of  our  selfishness.  Pity  certainly  fulfils  one 
of  the  conditions  of  all  the  noblest  love :  it  is  not  a 
lonely  and  unproductive  feeling :  it  cannot  pass  (except 
through  imaginative  abuse)  into  an  empty  luxury.  It 
looks  a  brother  in  the  face  :  it  puts  a  consolation  into 
his  heart :  it  fans  into  a  flame  the  embers  of  dying 
hope;  and  thus,  it  awakens  a  grateful  return.  In 
place  of  an  affliction  that  looked  up,  and  a  sorrow  that 
looked  down,  there  is  a  reciprocal  sympathy  standing 
eye  to  eye  with  a  mild  and  manly  brotherhood.  But, 
with  all  this,  there  is  work  ordained  for  us  which  this 
impulse  will  not  suffice  to  do.  Fastening  itself  on 
suffering  alone,  it  sees  nothing  else.  It  looks  on  man 
exclusively  as  a  being  capable  of  pleasure  and  pain ; 
and  until  it  perceives  the  trace  of  pain,  till  it  is  roused 
by  the  sigh  from  behind  it,  or  moved  by  wringing  hands 
before  it,  it  remains  at  rest  as  if  all  were  well.  Yet 
suffering  is  not  the  only  or  the  greatest  ill :  beneath 
the  smooth  and  glossy  surface  of  easy  life  there  may 
hide  itself  many  an  inward  disease  which  the  mere 
glance  of  pity  docs  not  discern.  Flourishing  iniquity 


The  Powers  of  Love.  303 

that  gives  no  seeming  pain  it  lets  alone :  invisible  cor- 
ruption may  spread  without  arrest.  Even  suffering  is 
commiserated  by  quantity  rather  than  by  quality,  being 
estimated  by  the  scale  of  the  sentient  nature,  more 
than  by  that  of  the  rational  spirit;  and  a  blind  in- 
stinctive treatment  is  administered,  destructive  of  the 
higher  discipline, — like  that  of  the  ignorant  nurse, 
who,  at  any  price  of  indulgence,  hushes  the  cries  of 
the  wayward  child.  Any  way,  the  character  of  animal 
impulse  clings  too  much  to  this  feeling,  to  allow  of  its 
satisfying  the  demands  of  a  good  heart. 

In  minds  of  a  higher  culture, — at  the  present  day 
in  the  minds  of  an  immense  class, — there  is  a  very 
different  order  of  affection,  for  which  great  claims  have 
been  advanced,  as  though  it  might  assume  the  empire 
of  the  soul,  and  wield  the  very  sceptre  of  religion. 
I  refer  to  imaginative  or  (esthetic  love,  which  attaches 
itself  to  objects  in  proportion  as  they  are  beautiful, 
kindles  the  enthusiasm  of  Art,  and  completes  itself  in 
the  worship  of  genius.  Let  us  not  be  provoked  by  the 
exaggerations  of  others  to  think  slightingly  of  a  power 
which  is  of  a  very  high  order  in  the  combinations  of 
our  world,  and  owes  its  sickliness  only  to  its  isolation. 
Our  life  would  be  but  a  poor  affair  without  it, — a 
miserable  succession  of  present  instants,  with  no  land- 
scape sleeping  in  the  past,  no  perspective  enshadowed 
in  the  future ;  with  light  to  cut  our  corn,  and  fell  our 
timber,  and  steer  our  ship,  but  not  to  play  upon  the 


304  The  Powers  of  Love. 

waving  fields,  and  paint  the  forest  stems,  and  glance 
upon  the  sea  ;  with  an  intelligible  task  before  us,  and 
worthy  neighbours  near  us,  but  no  solemn  expressive- 
ness in  the  one,  no  feature  of  inspiring  heroism  in  the 
other ;  with  a  kindliness  at  heart,  that  would  not  stand 
still  and  see  a  creature  die,  but  with  no  eye  to  see 
further  than  the  suffering  flesh,  or  ear  to  catch  more 
than  the  uttered  words ;  so  that  the  plaint  of  deepest 
pathos  is  reduced  to  prose,  dumb  sorrows  are  uninter- 
preted,  and  the  light  hand  of  a  graceful  love  is  but 
a  dull  prehensile  limb.  In  this  affection  there  is  a 
feature,  not  found  in  our  compassion,  but  never  absent 
from  the  noblest  love.  It  makes  us  like  and  more  like 
the  object  that  engages  it.  The  rays  it  sheds  upon  us 
touch  our  features  with  transformation,  till  the  coun- 
tenance of  the  soul  glows  like  that  of  the  prophet  who 
has  been  with  God.  This  assimilating  power  cannot 
remain  involuntary  in  a  self-conscious  being  like  man  : 
it  is  not  a  blind  tendency,  but  a  confessed  desire,  an 
intentional  effort,  wherever  realization  is  possible.  No 
one  can  admire  without  wishing  to  resemble,  and 
tracing  in  his  spirit  the  lineaments  that  transfigure 
him  "  into  the  same  image,  from  glory  to  glory." 
Hence,  to  this  feeling  for  what  is  beautiful  we  owe  the 
temper  of  aspiration,  the  pressure  towards  a  perfection 
that,  with  our  ascending  nature,  ever  rises  and  recedes. 
"What  more,  you  will  say,  do  we  want  than  this  ?  the 
tact  of  love  below,  and  the  urgency  of  desire  above, 


The  Powers  of  Love.  305 

seem  to  complete  the  graces  possible  to  our  limited 
souls.  Yet  is  this  affection  very  barren,  until  thrown 
into  the  midst  of  others,  to  harmonise  and  glorify 
them :  by  itself  it  is  but  as  the  spread  of  colour  with- 
out design,  which  may  turn  the  canvas  into  atmosphere, 
but  represents  only  the  airy  conditions  of  a  scene  that 
might  be  or  that  is  to  be.  No  reciprocal  sympathy  is 
requisite  to  this  sentiment :  that  which  is  admired  as 
beautiful,  does  not  admire  in  return.  And,  above  all, 
there  is  a  direct  tendency  to  turn  with  indifference  or 
even  merciless  repugnance  from  what  is  unlovely  in 
human  life  ;  to  stipulate  for  interesting  objects  of 
compassion ;  and  to  shrink  from  the  harsh  tasks,  the 
mean  cares,  the  repulsive  sights,  the  obscure  dangers, 
which  patient  goodness  encounters  without  a  word. 
The  early  Christians  were  very  sensible  of  this,  and 
left  a  curious  proof  how  profoundly  they  distrusted  a 
feeling  which  has  since  attained  unrivalled  energy  in 
Christendom.  They  interpreted  with  literal  severity 
the  words  which  they  accepted  as  prophetic  of  their 
Lord:  "He  hath  no  form  nor  comeliness;  and  when 
we  shall  see  him,  there  is  no  beauty  that  we  should 
desire  him ; "  and  they  consistently  made  the  first 
images  of  Christ  objects  frightful  to  behold.  Whence 
an  enthusiasm  so  strange  and  barbarous  ?  It  was  a 
violent  reaction  from  the  Pagan  worship  of  beauty, 
which  had  ennobled  Art,  and  corrupted  nature  ;  ex- 
tracted wonders  from  the  quarries  of  Pentelicus,  and 

x 


306  The  Powers  of  Love. 

horrors  from  the  populace  of  Rome  and  Corinth  :  per- 
fected the  marbles  of  the  temple,  and  degraded  the 
humanity  of  the  worshipper.  Heathenism  had  brought 
into  monstrous  combination  physical  beauty  and  moral 
deformity  :  the  Christians  retaliated  by  reconciling 
moral  beauty  with  physical  deformity.  But  the  union 
was  not  permanently  possible  to  the  human  heart. 
For,  that  ugly  Christ  of  the  early  disciples  was  also 
most  sacred  and  beloved  ;  the  hiding-place  of  a  divine 
grace,  the  covered  centre  of  whole  galaxies  of  holy 
light ;  and  that  was  a  secret  which  human  nature 
could  not  for  ever  keep  :  some  gleam  would  fain  shine 
through  to  rebuke  the  scoffing  eye  of  the  profane  :  the 
features  must  now  and  then.be  touched  with  a  holy 
radiance :  the  divinity,  enclosed  in  so  inadequate  a 
cell,  would  conquer  the  feeble  humanity  at  last,  and 
by  the  perseverance  of  inward  sublimity,  change  it 
into  visible  and  undisputed  glory.  And  thus,  as  in 
nature,  so  in  faith,  love  becomes  the  source  of  beauty  ; 
and  so  refines  the  forms  and  deepens  the  expressive- 
ness of  things,  that  matter  grows  transparent,  and 
earth  is  but  the  transitory  film  veiling  an  eternal 
heaven. 

There  is  however  a  higher  mood  of  affection  than 
this  idealizing  thought.  "We  are  conscious  of  a  moral 
love,  which  has  reference  to  persons  only,  not  to 
things ;  which  attaches  itself  to  them,  in  proportion  as 
they  are  good;  judges  them  by  the  standard  of  an 


The  Powers  of  Love.  307 

internal  Law ;  and  expresses  itself  in  tones,  not  of 
tenderness  as  in  pity,  or  of  admiration  as  in  the  trance 
of  beauty,  but  of  grave  and  earnest  approval.  This  it 
is  that  first  sweeps  with  a  healthful  and  invigorating 
breath  through  every  other  sympathy,  turning  it  from 
a  consuming  excitement  into  a  productive  faculty.  But 
for  this,  life  would  be  only  piteous  as  an  infirmary,  or 
fair  as  a  gallery  of  art;  not  a  theatre  of  strenuous 
action,  where  conflict  gives  birth  to  noblest  deeds,  and 
to  many  a  sorrow  too  glorious  for  compassion.  This  it 
is  that  makes  the  world  a  drama  of  deep  and  often 
breathless  interest ;  that  forces  us  to  take  sides  in  every 
struggle  and  stretch  forward  with  looks  of  suspense 
and  prayers  for  victory,  as  the  hosts  sway  to  and  fro 
in  the  thick  fight;  that  draws  out  our  favourites  and 
heroes  in  history,  and  makes  of  them  a  perspective  of 
great  spirits  through  the  past.  But  for  this,  the  martyr 
would  be  only  a  man  burnt ;  and  the  confessor  on  the 
rack  of  inquisition  but  as  the  patient  on  the  surgeon's 
table.  This  puts  a  mighty  courage  into  the  woman 
and  the  child,  and  turns  the  gentlest  nature  into  heart 
of  oak ;  and  even  fills  us  with  a  tempestuous  glory  at 
the  sufferings  of  the  good.  Inspired  by  this,  we  can 
stand  by  and  see  the  prophets  sawn  asunder;  can 
cheer  on  the  apostles  hunted  from  city  to  city ;  can 
feel,  as  we  watch  the  Christian  maidens  waiting  for  the 
tiger's  spring,  the  defiance  of  a  dreadful  joy ;  can  cling 
to  the  robe  of  Stephen  and  say,  '  Hold  on,  Brave 

x  2 


308  The  Powers  of  Love. 

heart,'  while  they  shout  '  Stone  him  to  death,'  and 
lay  bare  our  head,  "  that  we  also  may  die  with  him." 
The  moral  affection  unites  the  separated  excellencies  of 
the  others  ;  at  once  creating  reciprocal  sympathy,  and 
exercising  the  strongest  assimilating  power.  To  be 
approved  by  our  brother  is  to  hear  the  trembling  hope 
of  conscience  confirmed,  to  know  that  there  is  another 
nature  like  our  own,  to  feel  that  our  vows  and  prayers 
are  lonely  no  more ;  and  we  are  conscious  of  that 
mutual  intelligence,  which  is  at  once  the  secret  and  the 
solace  of  affection.  And  to  approve  a  being  as  good  is 
to  acknowledge  a  claim  to  become  like  him  :  and  the 
claim  implies  desire ;  and  the  desire  pushes  itself  into 
tendency.  I  know  not  indeed  a  more  serious  thing 
than  the  responsibility  thus  incurred  by  all  human 
affection.  Only  think  of  this :  whoever  loves  you  is 
growing  like  you  !  neither  you  nor  he  can  hinder  it, 
unless  at  the  cost  of  alienation.  Is  the  resemblance 
worth  creating  ?  should  you  be  pleased  to  see  in  your 
own  friend  another  self?  would  he  appear  to  you  with 
an  added  light  of  excellence,  or  with  a  duller  shade  as 
of  disappointment  and  saddened  hope  ?  0,  if  you  are 
not  a  desolate  being  in  this  world,  if  you  are  grateful 
for  but  one  creature's  love,  if  a  child's  trust  or  a 
parent's  shelter,  a  sister's  pride  or  a  brother's  manly 
joy,  rests  upon  you,  rise  to  the  height  of  so  pure  a 
blessing  :  reverence  the  sanctity  of  those  dear  souls  : 
dra^  them  not  down  by  the  very  embrace  with  which 


The  Powers  of  Love.  309 

they  cling  to  you ;  but,  in  requital  of  their  faithful 
cares,  strive,  if  it  be  possible,  to  lift  them  to  a  mood 
they  will  rejoice  to  reach,  and  through  their  gentleness 
secure  their  consecration. 

Even  this  moral  love,  however,  is  not  without  imper- 
fections, leaving  something  still  to  be  supplied.  Its 
characteristic  sentiment  of  Approbation  has  always  in 
it  a  certain  patronizing  air,  not  welcome  to  the  mercy  of 
a  true  heart,  and  more  like  the  rigour  of  a  Zeno,  than 
the  grace  of  Christ.  True  it  is  that  the  eye  of  con- 
science penetrates  readily  to  inconspicuous  excellence, 
and  lifts  the  poor  out  of  the  dust,  if  he  be  but  a  strug- 
gling saint.  But,  should  he  be  a  lost  sinner,  it  puts 
him,  with  severe  justice,  by  the  side  of  rich  and  gaudy 
wickedness,  as  a  creature  joined  to  idols,  that  must  be 
let  alone.  Nor  can  it  admire  anything  but  efforts  of 
the  will,  the  battle  of  resolution  with  temptation,  the 
strife  after  a  harmony  of  spirit  yet  unattained.  Trans- 
plant it  to  a  scene  where  that  harmony  is  already  won, 
where  evil  shows  off  its  attraction  all  in  vain,  where 
angel-minds  find  nothing  to  resist,  but  love  and  do 
with  one  accord  whatever  is  fair  and  holy  and  sing  at 
their  work  the  glad  strains  of  emancipated  natures,  and 
this  feeling  finds  itself  in  a  strange  land,  where  its 
plaudits  would  be  a  coarse  intrusion,  and  die  away 
upon  the  sainted  air.  Nor  in  any  of  the  forms  of  love 
which  we  have  named,  is  there  adequate  provision  for 
suppressing  the  discords,  and  quieting  the  troubled 


3io  The  Powers  of  Love. 

passions,  of  mankind.  Pity  grieves  over  the  suffering 
they  give ;  but,  not  going  to  their  heart,  can  only  hush 
them  up,  and  charm  the  delirium  to  temporary  sleep. 
Imagination  dislikes  the  jar,  and  evades  it  by  escape 
into  its  dreams.  Conscience  disapproves,  and  scolds 
the  uneasiness  into  sullen  silence,  but  cannot  exorcise 
the  demons  of  the  heart.  This  is  a  kind  of  human  ill 
that  goeth  not  out  except  by  the  voice  of  prayer  and  in 
recompense  of  faith.  Not  till  we  call  down  the  Spirit 
of  God  himself,  can  we  find  the  consummate  fruit  of 
love,  and  joy,  and  peace.  There  is  an  affection  higher 
than  we  have  named ; — a  Divine  Love,  directed  first 
upon  God  himself,  and  thence  drawn  into  the  likeness 
of  his  own  love,  and  going  forth  upon  other  natures, 
in  proportion  to  their  worth  and  claims.  This  is  the 
cro wning  and  calming  term  of  all  prior  affections ;  pre- 
supposing them,  and  lifting  them  up  from  clashing  and 
unrest  to  harmony  and  peace.  Who  can  show  us  any 
grace  or  power  which  it  does  not  include?  One  who 
lives  in  converse  with  Infinite  Perfection  can  neither  be 
without  the  sympathies  that  ennoble  minds  on  a  lower 
level,  nor  surrender  itself  to  any  as  tyrant  over  the  rest. 
The  springs  of  his  tenderness  and  strength  are  ready  to 
be  touched  by  whatever  has  native  claims  upon  a  human 
heart, — by  suffering,  by  beauty,  by  goodness  ;  nay, — so 
ready,  that  the  fitting  love  will  not  be  driven  back 
though  the  suffering  be  ugly,  and  the  beauty  wicked, 
and  the  goodness  narrow  and  unattractive.  He  is  not 


The  Powers  of  Love.  311 

insensible  to  the  shadows  of  imperfection,  but  is  carried 
with  intenser  feeling  to  the  lights  of  character;  for 
they  alone  are  the  soul's  realities,  and  there  it  is  that 
the  promise  lies  ;  and  as  they  brighten  and  spread,  the 
shadows  will  flee  away.  This  faith,  which  naturally 
flows  into  him  from  contact  with  the  All-holy  Mind, 
saves  him  from  the  bitterness  of  cynicism  and  the  de- 
spondency of  romance.  No  preferential  love,  it  is  true, 
— not  even  the  Divine, — can  be  without  its  aversions ; 
but  when  they  fall  upon  remediable  and  perishable  ill, 
while  the  heart  is  engaged  upon  an  everlasting  good, 
their  harshness  is  softened  and  their  dejection  relieved. 
He  that  is  taken  up  into  true  love  for  God  dwells  at  the 
fountain-head  of  perfect  life,  and  has  there,  not  only  an 
ever-present  Refuge  from  his  disappointment  in  partial 
natures,  but  the  goal  of  hope,  the  purifying  and  pene- 
trating force,  whither  the  most  distant  wanderer  tends. 
The  higher  his  conception  of  the  Soul  of  souls,  the  less 
is  his  surprise  that  in  our  humanity  the  image  is  broken 
and  the  resemblance  faint :  he  stands  at  an  elevation 
where  impatience  is  impossible,  and  from  the  consum- 
mate end  of  all  good  a  joy  goes  forth  to  greet  its 
smallest  beginnings.  Yet,  quick  as  his  sympathy  will 
be  to  detect  the  germs  of  every  grace,  he  will  no  more  be 
carried  away  with  enthusiasm  for  detached  and  limited 
excellence  than  be  flung  into  despair  by  the  uncancelled 
wrongs  and  grievous  sins  of  men  ;  for  he  lives  where  he 
can  be  shut  up  with  neither,  and  both  are  transcended 


3 1 2  The  Powers  of  Love. 

and  seen  only  in  their  true  relations.  Entranced  with 
the  vision  of  the  Supreme  Good,  he  can  never  fail  to 
recognise  and  embrace  its  broken  reflections  everywhere  ; 
also  he  can  never  cease  to  demand  the  missing  features 
that  are  yet  withheld ;  and  so  it  is  that  this  love  of  his 
is  generous  and  exacting  too  ;  meeting  the  achievements 
already  made  with  refreshing  response,  yet  pressing  for 
all  that  yet  remain  behind,  with  a  grave  arrest  of  sym- 
pathy and  an  expressive  silence  till  they  come.  This 
highest  form  of  love  is  as  well  proportioned  and  discrim- 
inative as  it  is  quick  and  copious ;  and  while  flowing 
freely  in  to  cherish  every  actual  grace,  still  fixes  an 
asking  look  upon  the  possible,  under  which  no  earnest 
conscience  can  ever  sleep.  It  is  a  prospective  affection, 
grateful  for  the  present,  but  thirsting  towards  the 
future ;  and  is  thus,  if  not  the  source,  at  least  the 
foster-parent  of  all  progressive  righteousness.  It  will 
suffer  no  slight  to  the  little  child,  and  casts  a  tender 
eye  on  the  rudimentary  heaven  of  his  nature ;  yet 
will  give  no  rest  to  the  noble  youth  who  had  kept  all 
the  commandments  and  yearned  for  something  more. 
When  I  am  contemplated  by  this  Christ-like  spirit,  I 
know  that  I  am  regarded  with  an  interest  measured  by 
the  capacities  of  my  being ;  and  with  a  love  which  is 
in  perfect  tune  with  my  inward  character  and  has  no 
reservations  but  from  my  own  unfaithfulness.  In  pro- 
portion as  the  conditions  of  my  life-problem  are  fulfilled, 
as  my  powers  put  themselves  forth  in  adequate  and 


The  Powers  of  Love  313 

fitting  activity,  as  I  promptly  and  truly  respond  to  the 
demands  upon  my  will,  am  I  animated  and  upheld  by 
support  of  the  divinest  sympathy.  And  just  as  far  as 
my  nature  fails  and  flags,  as  I  forfeit  strength  by 
unresisted  temptations  and  incur  shame  by  degrading 
compliances  and  shrink  from  required  sacrifice,  do  I 
feel  upon  me  a  look  which  deepens  all  my  guilt  and 
doubles  the  sadness  of  my  infirmity,  and  yet  silently 
pleads  with  me  to  re -assert  the  rights  which  I  have 
impaired,  and  overtake  the  march  from  which  I  had 
fallen  away. 

Thus,  from  this  highest  term,  of  divine  love,  there 
is  nothing  omitted :  it  covers,  it  blende,  it  modulates, 
it  dignifies,  it  sweetens  all  the  rest.  Hence  the  chief 
religious  minds  have  a  largeness  of  their  own  which, 
as  history  shows,  gives  them  a  mysterious  grasp  of 
other  and  minor  natures,  and  lifts  them,  in  the  moral 
world,  into  the  same  relation  to  partial  forms  of 
character,  that,  in  the  intellectual  world,  the  philoso- 
pher bears  to  the  specialist,  and,  in  the  sphere  of  Art, 
Michael  Angelo  bears  to  a  pattern-designer.  The  soul 
in  which  this  commanding  affection  remains  silent  may 
breathe  out  this  or  that  rich  tone,  and  even  its  snatches 
of  broken  melody ;  but  it  is  as  a  lyre  without  its  chief 
string,  or  an  organ  with  its  central  octave  dumb  ;  and 
It  can  never  be  adequate  to  deliver  the  great  master- 
pieces of  human  creation,  which  tax  all  the  powers  of 
performance  and  comprise  all  the  resources  of  harmony. 


The  Powers  of  Love. 

The  humane,  the  beautiful,  the  right,  remain  only 
scattered  elements  of  good,  till  they  are  gathered  into 
the  Divine,  and  blended  into  one  by  the  combining 
love  of  God. 


XXIV. 

lim  0f 


JOB  xiii.  24  (part),  25  (part). 

"  Wherefore  hidest  Thou  thy  face  ?    Wilt  Thou  break  a  leaf  driven  to 
and  fro  ? " 

As  the  Book  of  Job  and  Lockyer's  Astronomy  lay 
together  on  my  table,  I  could  not  help  contrasting  in 
them  the  genius  of  the  ancient  East  and  of  the  modern 
West.  Only  the  Mediterranean  longitudes  lay  between 
the  authors ;  yet  in  the  face  of  how  different  a  world 
did  they  live  !  To  the  one,  as  he  looked  up  on  the 
heavens  from  the  Arabian  plains,  the  vault  of  night 
seemed  written  all  over  with  mysteries  :  to  the  other, 
ccanning  it  from  his  observatory,  it  is  inscribed  with 
diagrams  that  may  be  worked  and  periodic  times  that 
may  be  registered.  The  Patriarch  (if  we  may  sub- 
stitute him  for  his  poet)  had  never,  it  is  plain,  been 
lectured  to  at  any  Royal  Institution,  and  looked  with 
superfluous  awe  at  many  things  in  nature  which  we 
'  perfectly  understand.'  Orion  and  Pleiades  above,  the 


316  The  Discipline  of  Darkness. 

forests  and  the  torrents  below,  the  wild  creatures  of  the 
mountain  and  the  floods,  the  speed  of  the  ostrich,  the 
flight  of  the  bird,  the  neck  of  the  war-horse,  the  scales 
of  Leviathan,  are  marvels  in  his  eyes, — the  speaking 
fragments  of  an  almighty  life  behind.  From  us,  the 
wonder  of  these  things  is  gone.  That  "  He  hangeth 
the  earth  upon  nothing  "  is  no  less  a  matter  of  course 
than  that  the  stone  flies  from  the  sling.  "  The  way 
for  the  lightning  of  thunder,"  far  from  being  "  hid 
from  the  eyes  of  all  the  living,"  we  may  see  on  every 
church  steeple.  Since  our  lessons  in  geology,  we  know 
it  is  the  •'  raised  beaches,"  instead  of  "  the  Almighty," 
that  have  "  set  bars  and  doors  to  the  sea  and  said, 
'  Hitherto  shalt  thou  come  and  no  further,  and  here 
shall  thy  proud  waves  be  stayed.' ':  We  have  "  mea- 
sured the  breadth  of  the  earth,"  and  ascertained  what 
a  trifle  it  is.  We  have  "  entered  the  way  where  light 
dwelleth,"  and  can  name  the  incandescent  chemicals 
from  which  it  comes.  The  "wild  ass"  and  the 
"unicorn," — are  they  not  stuffed  in  our  museums? 
and  in  the  nearest  Zoological  Gardens  may  you  not 
see  Behemoth  in  his  reeds,  "  moving  his  tail  like  a 
cedar  "  ?  We  have  got  so  familiar  with  the  place  and 
plan  of  things,  that  nothing  looks  in  upon  us  with  a 
quickening  eye,  and  our  wonder  is  all  used  up. 

This  habituation  to  the  order  of  the  world,  the  result 
of  long  and  large  experience,  satisfies  our  natural  desire 
to  see  into  the  Law  of  all  that  is  and  happens.  We 


The  Discipline  of  Darkness.          3 1 7 

do  not  like  to  be  taken  unawares :  we  prefer  the  track 
clear  and  open  into  the  distance,  and  gladly  escape  the 
starts  of  the  thicket  which  hides  we  know  not  what : 
we  deem  it  a  gain  to  reduce  the  surprises  of  life,  and 
stand  on  a  field  where  nothing  is  unforeseen.  Nor  is 
this  the  mere  craving  of  our  sentient  nature,  seeking 
for  repose.  It  is  no  less  the  ambition  of  the  intellect 
to  unravel  the  seeming  tangle  of  events,  to  lay  out 
here  and  there  the  many-coloured  threads,  and  trace 
how  the  parts  make  up  the  pattern  of  the  whole.  If 
Science  ever  indulges  an  Elysian  dream,  I  suppose  it 
is  to  live  in  a  scene  where  all  can  be  predicted  for  the 
future  and  interpreted  in  the  past ;  where  the  intricate 
shall  be  only  a  cluster  of  the  simple,  and  the  mysterious 
a  forgotten  haze  that  once  veiled  the  plain  ;  where  no 
duration  can  hide  anything  and  no  distance  dwarf  it ; 
and  from  the  perspective  of  thought  the  shadowed 
glades,  and  the  curving  sea,  and  the  dip  of  the 
horizon,  shall  take  themselves  away. 

With  this  ideal,  in  its  application  to  the  work  of  our 
hand  and  the  range  of  our  research,  there  is  no  fault  to 
be  found.  To  be  out  of  gear  with  the  system  to  which 
we  belong,  is  to  be  displaced  from  its  movements,  or  to 
feel  them  only  as  a  shock.  The  more  insight  we  can 
obtain  into  its  rules,  the  more  shall  we  fall  in  with  its 
power,  as  if  it  were  our  own  ;  and  be  prepared  for  its 
certainties,  as  if  they  lay  in  our  design  ;  and  be  saved 
all  struggle  for  what  is  not  to  be,  and  all  anxiety  about 


318  The  Discipline  of  Darkness. 

what  is  sure  to  come.  In  proportion  as  we  grow  into 
the  scheme  of  nature,  making  our  understanding  its 
copy  and  our  will  its  servitor,  do  we  extend  our  know- 
ledge, secure  our  action,  economise  our  strength  :  no 
error,  no  waste,  no  frustration,  confuses  our  career; 
and,  suffer  as  we  may,  it  is  the  quiet  endurance  of 
calculated  ill,  with  no  added  pang  of  horror  and  alarm. 
Wherever  then  we  can  push  our  conquests  over  the 
darkness  of  the  world,  it  is  not  for  us  to  pause  in  the 
advance  :  wherever  the  way  is  open,  we  are  free  and 
bound  to  go.  But  it  is  another  question,  whether  we 
have  reason  to  complain  of  the  many  paths  we  cannot 
enter,  and  of  the  impassable  limits  that  baffle  us  and 
turn  us  back.  Must  we  deplore  it  as  a  spoiling  of  our 
life,  that  not  all  its  elements  are  uniform  ;  that  the 
date  of  death  hovers  over  four-score  years,  and  alights 
now  here  now  there ;  that  the  birth  of  children,  the 
incidence  of  disease,  the  specialities  of  mental  consti- 
tution, nay,  even  such  outward  things  as  the  shipwreck 
and  the  fire  and  the  missile's  flight,  defy  our  foresight, 
and,  though  intensely  affecting  our  well-being,  hide 
themselves  in  the  inscrutable  order?  That  in  one 
sense  we  feel  a  grievance  in  such  irreducible  uncer- 
tainties, is  evident  from  this ;  that  by  the  method  of 
insurance  we  endeavour  to  get  rid  of  them,  and  find  an 
equivalent  for  the  prescience  we  cannot  exercise.  The 
advantage  we  thus  win  is  still  of  the  same  kind.  "We 
secure  ourselves  against  a  shock,  and  establish  a  base 


The  Discipline  of  Darkness  319 

to  make  our  reckoning  safe ;  and  though  we  cannot 
steady  the  uncertain  sea  on  which  we  ride,  we  place  in 
equilibrium  a  compass  that  shall  direct  the  helm.  And 
so,  if  all  our  life's  interests  could  be  reduced  to  rule,  if 
everything  human  could  be  predicted  like  the  phases 
of  the  moon,  we  should  doubtless  become  completely 
adapted  to  a  world  without  alternative ;  every  hour 
would  find  us  ready  ;  our  place  might  depend  upon  us 
with  the  certainty  of  fate  ;  no  step  would  ever  have  to 
be  retraced ;  habit  would  be  perfected  with  us.  But 
then,  Habit  would  become  supreme.  We  should  be 
worked  up  into  the  mechanism  of  nature,  and  what  else 
would  bo  our  Personal  powers  would  be  yoked  into  the 
same  team  with  the  weights,  and  damps,  and  winds. 
Wherever  such  a  state  is  approached,  we  turn  out 
more  work,  but  exercise  less  Soul ;  inasmuch  as  Rule 
in  nature  becomes  Routine  in  man.  If,  to  perfect  this, 
and  make  it  all  in  all,  fulfils  our  ideal  of  humanity, 
and  the  largest  outer  product  gives  the  greatest  life, 
then  we  must  lament  that  an  uncertainty  remains  to 
strain  the  cords  of  our  hearts,  and  fling  forth  music 
from  the  swaying  air.  But  if  our  life  have  another 
measure,  taken  from  within,  if  it  may  be  judged,  not 
wholly  by  what  it  successfully  does,  but  in  part  by 
what  it  intrinsically  is,  if  moreover  it  has  other  attri- 
butes than  it  takes  from  the  intellect  and  the  will,  if, 
with  rights  transcending  these,  it  have  a  trust  of  duty, 
and  a  pleading  of  pity,  and  a  flood  of  great  affections, 


320          The  Discipline  of  Darkness. 

then  we  must  see,  in  the  irreducible  uncertainties,  the 
very  school  and  discipline  of  this  side  of  our  humanity, 
where  its  glory  and  its  sorrow  blend. 

In  truth,  for  the  birth  and  the  freshening  of  human 
Love,  the  conditions  most  essential  are  just  the  con- 
ditions we  most  resist : — the  inequalities,  and  the  un- 
certainties of  life.  It  is  because  we  are  not  all  alike, 
but  a  great  mixed  company  of  weak,  and  strong,  of  men 
and  women,  of  young  and  old,  of  bright  and  sad,  nay, 
of  ancient  and  modern,  of  native  and  foreign,  that  our 
dull  souls  awake  into  sympathies  which  carry  them  out 
of  themselves  in  all  directions,  and  that  reverence,  trust, 
compassion,  rise  and  spread  through  all  the  spheres. 
And  it  is  because,  thus  taught  to  love,  we  cannot  see 
what  will  befall,  that  we  are  driven  to  love  the  more. 
There  are  times,  no  doubt,  when  we  forget  that  anything 
is  precarious,  and  for  the  moment  accept  the  unbroken 
health  of  things  as  if  it  were  a  pledge  that  so  they 
would  always  be  ;  and  these  are  apt  to  be  bold  and 
wanton  times,  when  the  voice  is  loud,  and  the  laugh  is 
rude,  and  the  words  not  free  from  insolence.  If  ever, 
in  such  an  hour,  we  have  borne  hard  upon  a  friend, 
let  but  an  illness  stretch  him  before  us,  and  his  life 
begin  to  look  frail,  how  instantly  we  know  that  we 
have  too  little  prized  it,  and  all  the  harsh  tones  dis- 
appear !  Wherein  lies  the  magic  of  that  look  of  his  ? 
"Whence  do  those  pale  features  draw  the  persuasion 
they  do  not  mean  to  speak  ?  If  we  knew  for  certain 


The  Discipline  of  Darkness          321 

that  in  a  month  he  would  be  on  Change  again,  and  that 
the  bell  would  not  toll  for  him  till  after  thirty  years, 
would  the  turn  of  his  eye  equally  smite  upon  our 
heart  ?  were  there  no  crisis  sitting  on  his  face,  no 
suggested  moment  of  trembling  between  life  and  death, 
should  we  move  around  him  with  the  same  reverent 
step,  and  speak  to  him  with  the  same  meaning  in  the 
voice  ?  No  :  it  is  not  from  what  we  see  with  the  out- 
ward eye,  but  from  the  questioning  visions  of  the  mind, 
the  haunting  dread,  the  half-ready  tears,  the  shadow 
of  the  morrow  behind  the  light  of  today,  that  the 
thoughtful  tenderness  all  comes ;  and  a  rigid  certainty 
would  soon  crystallize  upon  the  soul  and  bring  the 
hardness  back  again.  And  as  it  is  when  fears  are 
deepening,  so  is  it  when  they  are  waning  too,  yet  not 
forgot.  Let  the  crisis  pass,  and  the  days  of  conva- 
lescence come,  when  the  faint  glance  grows  bright, 
and  the  languid  cheek  begins  to  glow,  and  the  feet  are 
planted  firm  again,  and  the  sunshine  and  the  rustling 
leaves,  and  the  children's  merry  voices,  are  charged  with 
a  new  joy ;  why  do  we  linger  near  our  friend,  as  if  a 
sacred  fascination  held  us  ?  why  gaze  at  him  with  an 
insight  we  never  had  before  ?  why  feel  an  old  weight 
lifted  from  the  heart,  and  spring  to  him  with  the 
trust  and  promise  of  a  fresh  vow  ?  It  is  becaus3  the 
trembling  scales  have  turned,  and  we  are  purified  by 
the  wonder  of  deliverance  ;  snatched  from  the  com- 
punctions of  inadequate  affection,  and  placed  on  the 

Y 


322  The  Discipline  of  Darkness. 

threshold  of  better  hopes.  It  is  ever  the  secret  back- 
ground of  possibilities  we  cannot  read,  which  invests 
the  forms  in  the  front  light  with  mellowing  tints  of 
mystery,  and  a  veil  of  unearthly  beauty  ;  and  did  these 
never  reach  us  with  their  appeal,  we  might  know  the 
actual,  and  do  the  palpable  and  safe ;  but  we  should 
aspire  to  nothing,  and  venture  nothing,  bear  nothing 
with  high  trust,  and  take  no  vow  of  self-devotion. 

In  trying  then  to  eliminate  uncertainty,  we  strive, 
through  the  instinct  of  the  understanding  and  the 
will,  to  destroy  the  very  discipline  appointed  for  the 
conscience  and  affections  ;  and  as,  morally,  we  conquer 
in  our  intellectual  defeat,  and  repair  our  defects  of 
knowledge  by  nobleness  of  love,  it  may  well  be  believed 
that  we  shall  never  push  our  lines  of  foresight  to  the 
further  limits  of  our  human  world,  but,  in  the  last 
days  as  in  the  first,  find  ourselves  on  the  bounding 
shore  of  the  seen  and  the  unseen,  with  our  nature 
competed  for  by  the  finite  light  and  the  infinite 
shadows,  and  wrung  into  its  glory  by  the  conflict  and 
its  sorrows.  Had  not  Life  the  interest  of  an  ever- 
opening  plot,  with  catastrophe  preparing  every  instant 
but  hidden  to  the  last,  with  how  little  care  should  we 
see  its  curtain  rise,  with  how  little  sympathy  watch  its 
actors  play  their  part,  with  how  slight  a  sigh  perceive 
its  drop-scene  fall !  Why,  as  you  look  upon  a  group  of 
children  at  their  play, — why  does  the  ringing  laughter 
bring  you,  along  with  the  response  of  happy  affection, 


The  Discipline  of  Darkness.         323 

a  graver  and  a  tenderer  mood  ?  It  is  the  contrast  of 
the  thoughtless  present  and  the  hidden  future  :  you, 
know  there  is  a  drama  writ,  but  with  invisible  ink,  and 
reserved  in  the  casket  of  each  young  life ;  and  the 
images  throng  upon  you  of  the  countless  moving  vicis- 
situdes of  our  humanity ;  and  upon  the  ear  of  thought, 
the  peal  of  the  happy  marriage  bells,  or  the  toll  for 
the  early  death,  rings  out ;  and  you  wonder  which  is  on 
the  first  step  of  manly  faithfulness  or  womanly  devoted- 
ness,  and  which  on  the  slippery  incline  that  descends 
into  untraceable  ruin.  And  so  in  every  emergency  of 
later  years,  in  the  last  embrace  before  the  long  voyage, 
or  in  the  parting  before  the  war,  it  is  the  alternative 
images  peering  in  upon  the  mind,  of  happy  greeting, 
or  of  a  silent  spot  for  ever  sacred  in  the  far  waters  or 
on  the  foreign  field,  that  deepen  the  moment  with  a 
meaning  it  cannot  speak ;  and  though  the  voice  per- 
haps is  cheery  and  the  heart  beats  firm,  the  strength 
of  each  friend  is  only  in  the  other,  and  in  the  high 
trust  they  carry  into  the  dark.  If  you  take  the  dan- 
ger and  the  doubt  away,  where  would  be  the  gentle 
reverence  of  the  surrender  ?  Let  there  be  no  arrow 
by  night,  no  malady  by  day,  let  the  three-score  years 
and  ten  be  assured  to  the  last  hour,  and  the  eyes  fall 
punctually  asleep  with  the  setting  sun  entered  on  the 
calendar ;  and  would  anything  tender  and  divine  hang 
around  this  death  by  the  clock?  No  watchful  love 
could  hover  round  the  invulnerable :  they  might  go 

Y  2 


324  The  Discipline  of  Darkness. 

forth  on  their  enterprise  alone,  and  be  forgotten ;  fol- 
lowed by  no  musing  fancy,  that  is  flushed  with  their 
triumph  or  anguished  at  their  fall.  Between  us  and 
God  it  may  be  true  that  "  there  is  no  fear  in  perfect 
love  " ;  for  the  Eternal  is  for  ever  safe :  the  All -holy 
is  for  ever  good :  but  among  ourselves  it  would  be  a 
shallow  love  that  was  without  its  fear;  for  the  very 
goodness  and  sanctity  to  which  we  look  up  are  noble 
because  secured  by  no  necessity ;  and  the  lives  that 
are  the  Joy  of  ours  would  shine  with  a  drier  light,  were 
they  less  precarious ;  and  it  is  the  refraction  of  tears 
ever  possible,  that  breaks  the  rays  into  colours  soft 
and  beautiful.  If  we  are  faithful  to  one  another  in 
our  onward  march,  it  is  because  there  is  not  one  who 
may  not  fall :  our  road  lies  through  a  perpetual  am- 
bush ;  and  whoever  has  a  friend  to  keep  step  with  him 
on  the  way  will  try  to  place  him  on  the  sheltered  side. 
Of  our  moral  nature  it  is  the  very  essence,  that  it 
is  given  to  meet  alternatives;  of  our  affections,  that 
they  have  to  live  in  the  actual  with  eye  upon  the  pos- 
sible ;  and  the  whole  wisdom  and  magnanimity  of  life 
consist  in  a  will  conformed  to  what  is,  with  a  heart 
ready  for  what  is  not.  Unless  all  character  is  to 
perish,  the  contingencies  must  stay.  The  tacit  mutual 
dependence,  the  secret  suspicion  that  here  or  there  the 
ground  which  looks  so  solid  is  undermined,  the  con- 
stant possibility  of  a  total  change  of  parts  in  the 
drama  of  our  life,  and  so  the  silent  wonder  that 


The  Discipline  of  Darkness.          325 

mingles  with  every  scene,  these  are  the  freshening 
powers  breathing  on  what  else  were  common  or  un- 
clean, and  meeting  and  startling  us  like  angels  encoun- 
tered in  the  street.  Whatever  depth  there  may  be  in 
our  poor  love,  whatever  reverence  speaks  in  our  rough 
voice,  flows  into  us  from  that  world  unseen. 

All  our  private  experience  goes  to  soothe  our  com- 
plaints of  darkness,  and  reconcile  us  to  the  conditions 
of  a  precarious  existence.  The  witness  of  history  is 
on  the  same  side.  In  the  education  of  mankind,  what 
races  have  played  the  most  quickening  and  effective 
part  ?  Is  it  the  industrial  and  gainful,  that,  in  the 
interests  of  prosperity,  have  cultivated  isolation,  and 
have  evaded  the  conflicts  of  honour,  lest  they  should 
raise  the  rates  of  insurance  ?  Phoenicia,  who  treated 
the  world  as  an  Exchange,  and  crowded  every  port  with 
her  ships,  could  not  even  hand  down  her  maritime 
discoveries,  and  died  without  a  bequest,  except  of  her 
colonies,  her  superstitions,  and  her  crimson  dye.  Egypt, 
by  the  very  uniformity  of  her  physical  fertility,  re- 
mained in  moral  barrenness :  and,  with  a  monopoly 
of  the  arts  and  sciences,  sat  for  ages,  like  her  own 
Sphinx  upon  the  desert,  placidly  gazing  on  an  unfer- 
tilized world.  Her  stereotyped  civilization  aimed,  not 
without  success,  to  reproduce  in  society  the  inflexible 
order  of  natural  law,  and  to  bar  out  the  contingen- 
cies of  affairs.  If  you  would  estimate  such  stationary 
periodicity,  compare  its  fruitless  longevity  with  the 


326  The  Discipline  of  Darkness. 

brief  flash  of  the  Hellenic  States,  which  still  lights  up 
the  thought  and  thrills  the  hearts  of  men.  And  in 
lands  where  freer  and  larger  play  is  conceded  to  human 
capacities,  is  it,  do  you  think,  the  safe  and  quiet  times 
when  risk  is  absent  and  ease  secured,  that  cut  the 
distinctive  lines  into  their  character,  and  give  them  a 
physiognomy  in  history  ?  On  the  contrary,  it  is  in  the 
days  of  peril,  in  the  crises  of  anguish,  that  the  force  of 
character  steps  forth  and  constitutes  itself,  and  under 
some  high  and  daring  guidance,  finds  a  footing  upon 
the  rock  and  retakes  the  citadel  of  hope.  Had  Thebes 
never  been  humbled,  she  would  have  found  in  Epami- 
nondas  no  deliverer  to  illuminate  her  page  in  history. 
Had  Athens  never  been  abandoned  to  the  Persian  in- 
vader, there  would  have  been  no  magic  in  the  names  of 
Marathon  and  Salamis:  her  -writers  would  have  been 
without  their  most  telling  allusions,  her  orators  without 
their  most  kindling  appeals ;  and  her  people  would  not 
have  risen  to  that  ideal  type  of  life  which  makes  them 
the  wonder  of  all  time.  Had  Rome  seen  nothing  but 
an  Augustan  age,  she  might  have  had  historians,  if 
there  had  been  any  history  to  tell ;  and  poets,  if  they 
could  dispense  with  great  admirations,  and  sing  without 
the  material  of  great  actions  ;  and  philosophers,  if  the 
problems  of  the  world  had  ever  agitated  the  sleepy 
experience  of  men.  But  it  was  the  tyranny  of  Tarquin 
that  created  the  Republic :  it  was  from  the  cloud  of 
Carthaginian  invasion  that  Scipio  emerged:  it  was 


The  Discipline  of  Darkness.         327 

amid  the  shame  of  spreading  corruption  that  the  noble 
protest  of  Stoic  virtue  arose,  and  mingled  a  melancholy 
majesty  with  the  empire's  fall.  Nor  is  it  otherwise 
with  any  State  that  has  earned  a  remembrance  of 
itself.  Of  every  great  City,  the  memorials  of  fallen 
heroes  and  the  trophies  of  dread  strife,  are  among  the 
chief  works  of  art.  Every  legislative  hall  is  guarded 
by  the  figures  of  those  who  once  braved  the  dangers 
of  their  country's  darkest  hours.  In  every  national 
tradition,  the  popular  favourite  is  the  captive  king,  the 
chained  patriot,  the  unflinching  martyr. 

And  if  it  is  the  great  crises  of  peril  that,  as  they  are 
passing,  train  a  people's  character,  so  is  it  their  reflec- 
tion in  literature  that,  ages  after  they  are  gone,  still 
spreads  and  perpetuates  the  ennobling  influence.  The 
inspiration  that  descends  on  us  from  the  Past,  and  makes 
us  heirs  of  accumulated  thought  and  enriched  affections, 
• — from  whom  chiefly  does  it  come  ?  Is  it  from  the 
uniformly  happy  and  the  untempted  good  ?  from  those 
who  have  most  realized  the  lot  for  which  our  sentient 
and  intellectual  instincts  cry  aloud  ?  No  :  but  from  the 
central  figures  of  the  great  tragedies  of  our  humanity ; 
from  the  conquerors  of  desolating  monsters ;  from  the 
creators  of  Law  and  tamers  of  the  p2ople ;  from  love 
beyond  death,  that  carried  its  plaintive  music  to  the 
shades  ;  from  the  avengers  of  wrong ;  from  the  martyrs 
of  right ;  from  the  missionaries  of  mercy ;  from  the 
pass  of  Thermopylae ;  from  the  Milvian  bridge ;  from 


328  The  Discipline  of  Darkness. 

the  fires  of  Smitlifield ;  from  the  waters  of  Solway ; 
from  the  cross  of  Calvary.  A  world  without  a  contin- 
gency or  an  agony  could  have  no  hero  and  no  saint, 
and  enable  no  Son  of  Man  to  discover  that  he  was  a 
Son  of  God.  But  for  the  suspended  plot  that  is  folded 
in  every  life,  history  is  a  dead  chronicle  of  what  was 
known  before  as  well  as  after ;  Art  sinks  into  the 
photograph  of  a  moment  that  hints  at  nothing  else ; 
and  poetry  breaks  the  cords  and  throws  the  lyre  away. 
There  is  no  Epic  of  the  certainties ;  and  no  lyric  without 
the  surprise  of  sorrow  and  the  sigh  of  fear.  Whatever 
touches  and  ennobles  us  in  the  lives  and  in  the  voices  of 
the  past  is  a  divine  birth  from  human  doubt  and  pain. 
Let  then  the  shadows  lie,  and  the  perspective  of  the 
light  still  deepen  beyond  our  view ;  else,  while  we  walk 
together,  our  hearts  will  never  burn  within  us  as  we 
go ;  and  the  darkness,  as  it  falls,  will  deliver  us  into 
no  hand  that  is  Divine. 


PSALM  xxxvii.  7. 
"  Rest  in  the  Lord  and  wait  patiently  for  him." 

IT  is  difficult  for  the  young,  and  not  less  so  for  those 
who  yet  remain  children  in  soul,  to  believe  the  startling 
assertion,  by  religious  writers,  of  the  universal  misery 
of  men.  The  sad  music  of  the  prophets,  the  passionate 
outpourings  of  an  Augustin,  the  plaintive  meditations 
of  a  Pascal,  and  even  the  tender  voice  of  the  Man  of 
Sorrows,  appear  to  them  pitched  in  too  deep  a  key  and 
to  wander  over  notes  too  far  from  the  brilliancy  of  joy. 
The  impression  is  tims  very  prevalent,  that  devout 
persons  take  melancholy  views  of  things,  and  throw 
the  unreal  shadows  from  their  own  minds  on  the 
outward  scene  of  their  existence.  Yet  if  you  will  but 
turn  over  the  page  and  consult  the  expression  of  the 
same  mind  in  another  mood,  you  may  find  words 
transparent  with  an  infinite  depth  of  peace,  or  dashing 
on  in  a  torrent  of  rejoicing.  The  same  Paul  who  now 


330  Rest  in  the  Lord. 

wrings  bis  drooping  hands  and  cries,  "  0  wretched 
man  that  I  am,"  ere  long  flings  them  aloft  to  exclaim, 
"  Rejoice  in  the  Lord  always ;  and  again  I  say  unto 
you,  Rejoice ! "  The  same  Wesley  who  now  deplores 
his  "  vain  repentances," — his  life  grown  "  fruitless  at 
its  end," — in  lines  that  hear  the  trace  of  tears,  then 
bursts  into  the  triumph  of  his  watch-night  songs,  and 
glories  in  the  awful  joys  of  death,  in  strains  that  make 
the  passing  bell  appear  to  ring  with  victory.  To  the 
inexperienced,  both  the  sadness  and  the  joy  seem 
strange  and  unintelligible, — vehement  and  opposite 
outrages  upon  truth  and  reality, — the  alternations  of 
a  tumultuous  and  ill-regulated  mind.  And  yet  they 
not  only  co-exist  without  any  tendency  to  mutual  ex- 
clusion ;  but  are  found  in  men  most  remarkable  for 
their  calmness  and  constancy  of  soul,  for  the  clearness 
of  their  purposes,  and  the  force  and  patience  of  their 
will. 

The  fact  is,  the  childish  and  the  saintly  mind  form 
different  judgments  of  life  because  they  look  on  it  from 
opposite  mental  stations ;  the  one  from  a  condition  of 
unaicakened  aspiration,  the  other  from  that  of  aspira- 
tion that  has  found  its  path  and  touched  its  limits  • 
while  the  great  mass  of  men  on  whom  their  observa- 
tion is  made  fill  an  intermediate  field,  of  uneasy  and 
neglected  aspiration.  The  child,  gazing  at  the  grown 
world,  and  seeing  men's  outward  possessions  and  not 
their  inward  wants,  thinks  admiringly  of  their  lot, 


Rest  in  the  Lord.  331 

regards  it  as  a  powerful  and  cheerful  thing,  and  longs 
to  press  into  it.  The  saint,  discejning  an  inward  want 
beyond  all  the  measure  of  outward  possession,  pities 
the  infinite  thirst  that  feeds  only  on  ashy  and  juiceless 
fruits.  And  in  this  deep  compassion,  with  which  he 
looks  on  life,  he  from  time  to  time  includes  himself; 
for  though  he  has  reached  the  head-spring  of  ever- 
living  waters,  he  is  not  always  there :  he  wanders  from 
them  and  often  becomes  as  he  was  when  he  knew  them 
not,  and  is  then  not  less  parched  and  sick  at  heart  than 
all  the  rest.  The  three  stages  of  character  are  not  so 
separated,  that  when  we  have  emerged  into  the  higher, 
we  cannot  relapse  into  the  lower :  we  cannot  ascend, 
till  the  atmosphere  of  God  is  spread  around  us ;  but  to 
descend  in  its  very  midst,  we  have  only  to  droop  the 
wing.  And  so  it  is,  that  those  who  have  touched  the 
summit  know  the  sunshine  and  the  cloud  of  every 
elevation ;  while  they  who  are  yet  below  listen,  as  to 
strange  tales,  to  the  glories  and  the  terrors  of  the 
height. 

The  great  secret  of  all  peace  lies  in  the  ascendency 
of  some  strong  love.  Love, — the  admiring  or  reverent 
direction  of  the  heart  on  some  object, — is  the  positive 
power  of  our  life ;  and  on  its  free  action,  on  its  due 
match  against  the  problems  it  undertakes,  depend  the 
tranquillity  and  unity  of  existence.  The  child  is  happy, 
because  his  love  is  well  proportioned  to  its  ends :  it 
ranges  over  the  little  circle  of  good  before  his  eyes; 


332  Rest  in  the  Lord. 

and  goes  unanxiously  forth  to  embrace  and  realize  its 
aim.  He  is  checked  by  a  venerated  control  from  with- 
out, not  hy  shameful  hesitancies  within  :  he  sighs  for 
little  that  is  out  of  reach ;  and  he  lives  ever  pursuing 
and  ever  winning  his  pursuit.  The  man,  at  least  of 
the  present  and  all  similar  ages,  is  unhappy,  because 
in  this  he  has  ceased  to  be  a  child.  The  balance  of 
his  nature  is  destroyed.  He  has  more  understanding, 
and  has  no  more  love.  The  great  motive  energy  of 
his  soul  is  overchecked, — regulated  by  exacting  scruples 
into  an  uneasy  incapacity.  He  can  no  longer  surrender 
himself  freely  into  the  possession  of  a  great  truth,  or 
plunge  into  the  tides  of  a  glorious  passion.  He  has 
the  wish  to  take  the  right  course,  and  the  discernment 
to  avoid  the  wrong,  but  no  impulse  to  bear  him  hither 
or  thither ;  and  so  he  sits,  like  a  pilot  in  a  calm,  with 
infinite  skill  to  direct  his  helm,  but  not  a  breath  to 
swell  his  sails.  The  office  of  the  intellect  is  purely 
regulative,  that  of  the  conscience  mainly  prohibitive  : 
they  speak  to  us  in  negatives  ;- — "  not  this  way,  for  it 
is  foolish  ";  "not  that,  for  it  is  wrong."  They  supply 
no  power,  but,  assuming  it  to  be  there,  prevent  its 
waste  and  its  abuse.  An  age  that  develops  them  to 
the  neglect  of  all  else,  and  attempts  to  live  by  them 
alone,  finds  itself  therefore  wise  in  the  cure  of  all 
diseases,  yet  without  the  freshness  of  natural  health, 
poising  its  existence  on  dietetic  niceties  and  not  breast- 
ing the  winds  of  the  mountain  and  facing  the  driving  of 


Rest  in  the  Lord.  333 

the  snow.  "We  have  surely  fallen  on  such  a  time  of 
feebleness  and  unrest.  We  have  the  critic  everywhere  : 
the  lover  nowrhere.  Nothing  so  cheap  as  the  intelli- 
gence which  suffices  to  contradict  and  the  conscientious- 
ness which  prompts  to  object :  but  the  heart-wisdom 
that  can  light  us  on  our  way  by  the  lustre  of  sweet 
and  earnest  affection,  the  holy  zeal  that  can  melt  our 
doubts  away  and  make  our  duty  a  march  of  common 
joy  instead  of  a  skirmish  of  individual  scruples,  are 
little  less  than  obsolete.  Disintegration  is  at  work  in 
every  church  :  irresolution  marks  every  party  in  the 
state :  isolation  enfeebles  every  man  apparently  fitted 
to  lead  in  thought  or  action.  Sects  keep  together  by 
external  repulsion  rather  than  by  internal  attraction ; 
and  the  only  fervours  that  appear  seem  to  be  the  in- 
spirations of  antipathy.  In  private  life  the  lines  of 
care  are  deepened  :  a  certain  anxiety  of  mind,  a  visible 
susceptibility  of  temper,  the  absence  of  a  genial  and 
trustful  spirit,  betray  the  unsatisfied  nature  and  the 
dearth  of  guiding  sympathies  within.  Thought,  grown 
too  quick  and  active  for  love,  becomes  a  painful  rest- 
lessness. It  is  incapable  of  any  flight  of  steady  aim 
that  shall  enable  it  to  migrate  from  clime  to  clime  of 
truth ;  but  is  like  the  swallow  that  has  lost  its  nest, 
wheeling  in  idle  circles  through  the  air,  sweeping  the 
grass  or  tipping  the  water  with  its  wing,  still  hovering 
round  its  place  of  loss,  with  a  cry  that  proclaims  it 
desolate. 


334  Rest  in  the  Lord. 

Wherever  this  source  of  unrest  exists,  there  is  no 
remedy  but  in  restoring  the  lost  proportions  of  the 
soul : — by  disciplining  the  affections  into  a  greatness 
suitable  to  the  control  of  so  critical  a  judgment  and  so 
scrupulous  a  conscience.  In  the  absence  of  anything 
of  nobler  scope,  limited  loves,  particular  enthusiasms, 
mere  fancies  of  the  mind,  be  they  only  innocent,  are  a 
great  good ;  breaking  the  threads  of  detaining  hesita- 
tions, and  in  one  direction  at  least  delivering  the  heart 
from  contempt.  The  active  votary  of  any  harmless 
object  is  better  than  the  passive  critic  of  all ;  and  the 
dullest  man  who  lives  only  to  collect  shells  or  coins  is 
worthier  than  the  shrewdest  who  lives  only  to  laugh  at 
him.  And  if  his  pursuit,  instead  of  fastening  on  a 
mere  dead  product  of  nature  or  history,  attach  itself 
to  some  human  object,  if  it  be  the  pride  of  a  father  in 
a  child,  or  the  guardianship  of  a  mother  by  her  son,  it 
redeems  life  from  the  curse  of  sterility,  and  enriches  it 
with  many  spots  of  gentle  beauty :  it  turns  the  soul 
out  from  its  own  close  centre  and  gives  it  the  free  air 
of  disinterestedness  :  it  imparts  strength  for  wholesome 
self-denial ;  and  smooths  out  the  hard  lines  upon  the 
features  with  the  softening  touch  of  pity  and  of  joy. 
In  these  days  it  is  a  wiser  and  more  difficult  skill  in 
education  to  preserve  the  enthusiasms  of  nature,  than 
to  regulate  them  by  the  artifices  of  reason ;  to  save 
the  moral  admirations  from  false  shame  at  their  own 
earnestness  than  to  restrain  them  from  rash  excess. 


Rest  in  the  Lord.  335 

Let  tlio  fresh  dew  lie  undisturbed  upon  the  young 
child's  soul :  only  by  drinking  it  eagerly  in  during  the 
early  .hours  can  it  bear  the  noonday  heats  and  l.end  an 
unwithered  smile  to  the  evening  shades. 

But  it  is  only  in  contrast  with  no  love  that  we  can 
thus  accept  any  love  as  a  good.  It  cannot  be  morally 
indifferent  what  the  object  of  affection  is.  It  would 
be  a  weak  and  sentimental  abuse  of  Christian  doctrine 
to  suppose  that,  because  "  love  is  the  fulfilling  of  the 
law,"  any  sort  of  feeling  that  carries  us  out  of  our- 
selves satisfies  the  demands  of  divine  obligation  and 
completes  the  conditions  of  a  holy  peace.  The  objects 
offered  to  the  heart  are  very  variously  worthy  of  its 
attachment ;  and  only  when  each  has  its  just  share 
and  place  and,  however  dear,  recedes  before  more 
venerable  claims,  can  we  cease  to  be  among  the  weary 
and  heavy-laden,  and  find  the  true  disciple's  inner  rest. 
It  is  the  vice  of  amiable  fanatics  to  treat  love  as  in 
itself  the  supreme  good,  the  end  of  the  Christian  life ; 
to  pray  always  jand  only  for  the  melting  of  the  stony 
heart ;  as  if,  when  this  were  done,  all  was  surely  right, 
and  nothing  remained  for  vigilance  and  aspiration. 
Love  is  a  good,  not  on  its  own  account,  but  on  account 
of  the  excellence  to  which  it  clings ;  not  because  it  sets 
the  heart  at  one  with  something,  but  with  something 
noble,  true  and  holy.  Nobleness,  truth  and  holiness 
must  therefore  be  higher  than  affection,  being  that  to 
which  it  ought  to  spring.  Where  they  are  not  made 


336  Rest  in  the  Lord. 

supreme  and  paramount,  wherever  love  stays  with 
mixed  and  lower  objects  and  intercepts  the  clear  view 
of  these,  wherever  it  learns  to  be  satisfied  with  its 
tenderness  and  heedless  of  its  purity,  not  only  is  its 
influence  tainted,  but  its  peace  is  spoiled  by  utter 
instability.  A  heart  entirely  surrendered  to  its  human 
and  earthly  relations,  without  throwing  around  them 
the  hallowed  atmosphere  of  faith,  is  indeed  redeemed 
from  the  dry  pining  of  a  bark-bound  and  unmellowed 
nature ;  but  has  no  security  from  the  sorrows  and  sins 
of  impulse,  no  shelter  from  the  storms  of  tumultuous 
anguish.  The  domestic  love  which  is  a  mere  enlarge- 
ment of  instinct,  without  moral  appreciation,  without 
reverence,  providing  the  tender  care,  but  unconscious 
of  a  holy  trust,  is  detained  with  the  earthly  form,  and 
never  catches  the  heavenly  spirit,  of  its  lot.  No  sacred- 
ness  mingles  with  the  daily  task  :  no  angel-hand  wipes 
the  tears  of  weariness  away :  no  treasured  hope  beguiles 
the  bereft  and  mourning  heart  with  visions  sweet  and 
calm.  For  want  of  a  supporting  reverence,  the  truest 
affection  loses  its  clearness  and  misses  its  proper  end. 
The  parent,  for  instance,  loves  his  children :  nor  was 
there  ever  perhaps  a  country  or  an  age  in  which  this 
relation  had  more  power  than  with  us.  Too  often, 
however,  he  loves  them  with  no  tincture  of  respect  or 
restraining  sense  of  sanctity ;  but  more  and  more  with 
the  tenderness  of  indulgent  instinct ;  less  and  less  with 
that  quiet  strength  to  deny  them  and  authority  to 


Rest  in  the  Lord.  337 

guide  them,  which  springs  from  the  consciousness  of 
a  trust  and  the  presence  of  a  Divine  eye.  Hence,  the 
natural  distance  between  souls, — the  very  thing  that 
makes  the  beauty  of  life's  perspective  and  the  whole- 
someness  of  its  discipline, — is  disappearing  from  recog- 
nition :  young  and  old,  wise  and  foolish,  are  brought  to 
the  level  of  a  kindly  but  prosaic  equality ;  and  the 
hoary  head  turns  coward,  whilst  the  young  child  grows 
bold.  Hence,  too,  a  spectacle  more  and  more  common, 
especially  in  the  families  of  the  affluent,  which  a 
thoughtful  observer  finds  it  sad  to  behold.  Often  you 
may  see  the  earliest  years  of  children  cared  for  with  a 
studious  conscience ;  not  merely  a  well-adjusted  phy- 
sical management,  and  a  steady  mechanism  of  habit 
and  good  instruction ;  but  a  nice  vigilance  over  the 
temper  and  dispositions,  a  scrupulous  regard  for  truth 
and  purity,  an  anxiety  to  train  the  moral  taste  aright ; 
giving  you  every  hope  that  the  parents  know  their 
sacred  trust,  and  feel  their  house  to  be  a  shrine  of 
devout  service.  What  fairer  sight  can  there  be  than 
the  children  of  such  a  home  ? — the  open  brow,  the 
clear  confiding  eye,  the  gracious  ways,  the  artlessness 
moulded  into  beauty,  present  a  frequent  picture  which 
it  is  a  joy  to  behold.  Thus  far  the  purest  desires  of 
the  home,  the  prayers  that  the  children  may  be  good, 
have  no  hindrance  :  they  regulate  the  hours,  they  choose 
the  instructor,  they  form  the  speech,  they  determine  the 
companions,  they  select  the  tale.  But  the  nursery  does 

z 


3 38  Rest  in  the  Lord. 

not  last  for  ever.  The  time  comes  when  its  threshold 
must  be  passed,  and  from  a  distance  the  hum  and  mur- 
mur begin  to  flow  upon  the  ear  from  the  great  halls  of 
life  ;  and  how  often  does  that  dizzying  sound  act  with 
a  fatal  charm  and  confuse  the  native  religion  of  the 
parent's  heart!  He  no  longer  offers  these  young 
souls  only  to  goodness  and  to  God,  but  now  limits  his 
higher  wishes  by  the  conditions  of  fashion  and  success. 
That  his  sons  should  be  pure,  manly,  noble ;  that  his 
daughters  should  be  guileless,  modest,  and  of  loving 
earnest  heart ;  that  both  should  be  so  true  to  their  best 
aspirings  as  to  meet  any  Christ-like  eye  and  lie  open  to 
any  holiest  spirit ; — these  wishes  are  qualified  now  by  the 
resolve  that  no  disadvantage  shall  be  suffered  in  the  hot 
race  of  life>  and  no  unskilfulness  endured  in  the  usages 
and  ideas  of  the  surrounding  world.  And  so,  from  that 
moment,  the  tyranny  of  custom  intrudes  upon  the  serious 
sanctities  of  parental  choice  ;  and  on  the  minds  hitherto 
so  protected  a  thousand  influences  are  permitted  to  pour 
which  shock  their  purity  and  bewilder  their  veracity  and, 
with  a  false  dazzle  of  frivolity,  put  out  the  earnest  stars 
of  heavenly  contemplation.  It  is  of  all  things  the 
most  melancholy  to  watch  the  moral  clouding  over  of 
life's  early  dawn ;  to  trace  the  dim  veil  stealing  over  the 
artless  look ;  to  notice  how  the  earnest  tone  begins  to 
leave  the  voice,  and  every  worthy  enthusiasm  dies  away 
into  indifference ;  how  it  comes  to  be  thought  a  fine 
thing  to  speak  coolly  of  what  is  odious  for  its  vice, 


Rest  in  the  Lord.  339 

and  critically  of  what  is  awful  for  its  beauty.  Thus 
to  see  the  young  that  had  filled  us  with  love  and 
hope  growing  out  of  their  simplicity  and  intuitive  clear- 
ness instead  of  maturing  into  depth  and  enlarging  into 
greatness,  is  like  the  disappointing  passage  from  the 
fresh  spring  to  the  mid-summer  in  the  precincts  of  a 
large  town  instead  of  in  the  open  country  and  amid  the 
breezy  hills  ;  the  brilliant  foliage,  the  joyous  grass,  the 
sportive  light,  fading  in  the  one  case  into  a  dingy 
grimace  of  nature,  ripening  in  the  other  into  a  massive 
fulness  and  splendour.  Where  this  spoiling  takes 
place,  I  believe  it  is  because  we  mingle  no  reverence  with 
our  affection,  and  accept  without  awe  the  solemn  trust  of 
a  child's  conscience.  Were  there  a  deeper  reality  in  our 
cares  for  religious  training,  we  should  feel  committed  to 
us  a  soul  new  as  if  born  in  Paradise,  and  should  watch 
to  see  the  divine  features  come  out;  should  fear  to 
quench  any  aspiration,  to  contradict  any  protest,  to  hurt 
any  sacred  instinct,  of  a  spirit  nearer  perhaps  to  God 
than  ours.  Do  you  plead  the  necessity,  urged  for  so 
many  questionable  things,  of  giving  the  youth  betimes 
"  a  knowledge  of  the  world  "  ?  Aye ;  but  of  what 
"world"? — for  that  is  a  large  name,  which  covers 
several  different  things.  Do  you  mean  the  crowd  of 
contemporaries  on  the  same  level  with  himself,  his 
equals  or  inferiors  in  principle  and  character,  who  by 
their  tendencies  and  habits  vote  into  existence  the 
customs  amid  which  he  is  to  live  ?  If  BO,  you  propose 

z  2 


34-Q  Rest  in  the  Lord. 

to  bring  him  down  to  the  average  standard  created  by 
the  mixed  multitude  of  good  and  bad,  to  kill  out 
every  higher  expostulation  of  the  soul,  and  undo  as  he 
ad^7ances  the  hopeful  work  of  earlier  years.  No  :  be 
not  afraid  to  scorn  so  poor  an  ambition.  Let  him  grow 
familiar  with  an  elder  and  a  better  "  world  "  than  this  ; 
with  the  men  of  grander  stature,  who  constitute  the 
honour  and  lustre  of  history ;  who  will  rebuke  in  him 
all  mean  enclosure  in  the  present  and  make  him  con- 
scious of  high  communion  with  the  past;  who  will 
kindlo  him  with  veneration  for  the  nature  given  him  to 
adorn  ;  who  will  detain  him  in  the  company  of  tho  wise 
and  holy,  and  touch  him  with  shame,  if  he  be  not 
worthy  of  their  society  and  kindred.  The  minds  above 
him,  the  spirits  of  patriots  and  saints,  martyrs  of  truth, 
apostles  of  righteousness, — these  are  the  "  world,"  in 
the  "  knowledge  "  of  which  it  is  ennobling  to  excel, 
though  it  gives  no  passport  to  the  assemblies  of  fashion, 
and  supplies  no  key  to  the  slang  of  frivolity. 

As  with  domestic  love,  so  is  it  with  every  affection 
that  can  separately  possess  the  soul :  if  it  escapes  the 
grasp,  and  is  not  taken  up  by  the  glory,  of  a  devout 
Faith,  it  is  never  safe  from  becoming  wavering,  wild,  or 
tyrannous.  If  frustrated, — its  disappointment  is  without 
rebound,  falls  with  crushing  blow  and  then  lies  still  as 
a  dead  and  irremovable  weight.  If  satisfied, — the  joy 
of  success,  spoiled  by  self-gratulation,  becomes  a  mere 
exuberance  of  spirits,  and  has  none  of  the  serene 


Rest  in  the  Lord.  341 

dignity  of  a  thankful  soul.  "Where  there  is  no  quieting 
perception  of  a  Divine  Presence  in  the  world,  the  sense 
of  justice,  the  indignation  at  wrong,  sinks  into  a  revolu- 
tionary passion,  fantastic  in  its  speech  and  reckless  in 
its  ways,  instead  of  a  grave  and  considerate  obedience 
to  the  eternal  Law  of  God.  All  human  enthusiasms, 
permitted  to  become  ultimate  and  disown  their  divine 
subordination,  invariably  degenerate  into  restlessness 
and  precipitation  ;  fret  and  chafe  impatiently  against 
the  obstacles  that  stay  their  course  ;  and  where  they 
cannot  win  a  happy  way,  waste  -and  corrode  themselves 
with  inner  scorns  and  vexations.  A  vehement  tempera- 
ment may  no  doubt  be  externally  subdued  by  considera- 
tions of  policy,  or  the  discipline  of  good  taste  and 
intellect.  But  how  paltry  is  this  decent  self-control, 
compared  with  the  real  internal  calm  when  the  Christ- 
like  spirit  has  walked  over  the  wild  waters  of  the  soul ! 
No  sublimer  spectacle  do  I  know  on  earth,  than  the 
faculties  of  a  grand  and  passionate  nature,  as  in  a 
Socrates  or  a  Paul,  falling  into  stillness  before  the 
face  of  God,  and  by  the  awful  light  of  his  countenance 
turned  from  a  stormy  nobleness  into  a  loving  and  work- 
ing power.  It  is  a  spectacle  which  emerges  painfully 
and  rarely  from  the  battle  of  the  will,  spontaneously 
and  often  from  the  repose  of  faith. 

In  thus  seeking  a  divine  transfiguration  for  all  our 
natural  impulses,  I  am  far  from  wishing  to  set  up,  like 
our  older  divines,  the  love  of  the  Creator  in  opposition 


342  Rest  in  the  Lord. 

to  what  was  called  " the  love  of  the  creatures";  as 
though  the  mind  intent  on  God  must  find  every  other 
sympathy  ahsorbed,  and  feel  itself  alone  and  without 
relation  amid  the  Infinite.  This  fancied  antagonism 
between  the  human  and  divine  yearnings  of  our  nature 
is  a  cold  metaphysic  sublimation  so  false  to  reality  that 
the  gentlest  spirit,  we  may  safely  affirm,  will  ever  come 
more  gentle  and  loving  from  its  prayers  ;  and  the  first 
trace  by  which  God  marks  his  path  across  the  soul  is 
the  new  tenderness  in  every  tint  of  pure  affection,  and 
the  quicker  movement  in  each  work  of  kindly  service. 
But  this  I  do  profoundly  believe  ;  that  all  finite  loves 
are  only  half-born,  wandering  in  a  poor  twilight,  un- 
knowing of  thtir  peace  and  power,  till  they  lie  within 
the  encompassing  and  glorifying  love  of  God.  Where 
there  is  no  reference  to  him,  our  pictures  of  the  moral 
universe  become  as  much  mere  local  distortions  as  the 
systems  of  nature  which  misplace  the  stationary  Sun. 
The  soul,  drawn  out  by  filial  sympathy  into  his  infini- 
tude and  blended  by  aspiration  with  his  absolute  perfec- 
tion, sees  the  inner  orbits  of  dependent  good  precisely 
as  they  are,  fair  and  true  in  themselves,  but  borrowing  a 
more  solemn  beauty  from  their  relation  to  the  whole. 
Held  to  their  centre  of  equilibrium,  and  facing  his  light 
from  their  several  distances,  the  lesser  affections  observe 
their  proportions  and  do  not  fly  from  their  tracks.  How 
can  they  ever  look  away  from  him  ?  He  is  the  element 
in  which  they  live.  Though  they  were  to  perish,  ho 


Rest  in  the  Lord.  343 

would  endure.  While  all  else  rises  and  flows  by,  he 
is  and  ever  stays.  Amid  the  fleeting  shows  and  dis- 
appointed promises  of  good,  he  abides  with  us,  the  in- 
exhaustible Essence  and  reality  of  all.  In  him  alone, 
but  in  him  for  ever,  there  is  Rest.  In  evil  days, 
when  just  men  strive  in  vain  to  beat  back  the  hosts  of 
wrong,  and  mad  tyrannies  gall  the  heart  with  shouts  of 
triumph,  the  Sentinel  of  every  world  is  on  his  sleep- 
less watch,  and  knows  how  to  protect  it  from  surprise. 
He  is  the  continuous  thread  of  all  our  years,  and  his 
love  throws  in  each  pattern  of  beauty  woven  into  their 
texture :  and  when  the  images  of  the  past,  the  distant 
fields,  the  dear  abode,  the  gracious  forms,  the  vivid 
hopes,  the  earnest  heroisms,  of  our  young  days,  gleam 
with  a  fairer  light  through  the  sorrows  and  failures  of 
maturity,  it  is  his  breathing  spirit  that  dissipates  the 
cloud  of  time,  and  sends  his  reviving  sunshine  through. 
Only  let  us  be  at  one  with  him,  and  our  life  gathers 
down  upon  it  the  strength  of  his  infinite  serenity.  The 
simple  thought,  that  '  God  is  here,' — that  the  august 
Ordainer  of  our  trust  and  supporter  of  our  faithfulness 
is  present  in  the  very  hiding-places  of  the  soul, — con- 
tains within  it  the  most  powerful  agencies  of  religion. 
Warning,  sympathy  and  rest  are  treasured  in  it  to  in- 
exhaustible amount.  Amid  the  fatigues  of  life's  inces- 
sant struggle,  under  the  sense  that  we  can  never  sleep  or 
all  things  will  go  wrong,  refreshment  is  instantly  gained 
when  we  ascend  to  the  fountain  of  all  affection,  and  touch 


344  Rest  in  the  Lord. 

the  parching  lips  with  the  draft  of  life.  In  temptations 
to  unfaithfulness  witnessed  by  no  human  eye,  let  us 
hut  say,  '  Ah  !  Lord,  but  thou  art  here,'  and  the  failing 
purpose  springs  to  its  feet  again.  And  under  the  en- 
croachments of  fretfulness  or  despondency  from  the 
frequent  perrerseness  of  men,  what  can  so  soon  check 
the  hasty  thought,  soothe  the  unquiet  passion,  and  put 
a  music  of  patience  into  the  soul,  as  the  look  of  that 
pure  and  loving  eye  from  its  depth  of  infinite  calm  ? 
In  the  trembling  of  age  and  the  stealthy  approaches 
of  the  last  sleep,  the  dear  presence  of  an  Almighty 
Guardian,  to  whom  age  is  as  childhood  and  who  unites 
the  future  with  the  past,  fills  the  deepening  shadows 
with  a  mild  and  holy  light.  Let  him  only  be  near  ;  and 
the  obscuring  veil  of  mortal  ill  that  sometimes  seems  to 
shut  us  in,  and  tempts  us  to  believe  in  nothing  but  the 
sad  rain,  is  soon  withdrawn,  like  the  cloud  lifting  itself 
from  out  the  glen ;  and  the  sunshine  first  glorifies,  then 
dissipates  the  haze ;  leaving  the  mountain-range  of  im- 
movable goodness  and  beauty  clear  against  the  ever- 
lasting sky.  So  pass  the  storms  away,  so  deepens  the 
heavenly  view,  to  the  soul  that  will  but  "rest  in  the 
Lord  and  wait  patiently  for  him." 


Messrs.  Roberts  BrotJiers*  Publications. 

THE  CHRISTIAN  IN  THE  WORLD.  By  Rev. 
D.  \V.  FAUNCE.  i6mo.  Price  $1.50.  Contents:  The 
Statement;  The  Method;  Principles;  The  Christian  in 
Prayer;  The  Christian  in  his  Recreations;  The  Christian 
in  his  Business. 

From  the  Boston  Cultivator. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  by  the  will  of  the  late  Hon.  Richard  Flelchef 
a  fund  was  bequeathed  to  Dartmouth  College,  from  the  proceeds  of  which  should 
be  offered  biennially  a  prize  of  $500  for  the  best  essay  on  the  importance  of  holy 
living  on  the  part  of  Christian  professors,  and  to  the  author  of  this  admirably 
written  work  has  the  prize  been  awarded.  This  earnest,  practical  appeal  for  a 
higher  standard  of  Christian  living  comes  fresh  from  the  heart,  and  we  think 
must  reach  the  heart  and  bring  forth  fruit  in  the  lives  of  those  who  read  it.  In  its 
wi  e  application  it  comes  to  the  Christian  in  his  business  and  social  relations, 
his  daily  duties  and  recreations,  telling  him  how  in  all  these  varied  relations  he 
can  be  a  "  Christian  in  the  World,"  and  a  blessing  to  his  race. 

From  tlie  Christian  Era. 

But  the  characteristic  of  the  work,  one  which  will  attract  to  it  a  class  of 
intelligent,  spiritual-minded  Christians,  the  unorganized  fraternity  of  the  inner  and 
the  outer  life,  is  its  lefty,  uncompromising,  exhilarating  idealism.  It  exhibits  the 
perfect  man  in  Christ,  and  to  that  picture  it  points  with  the  calm  earnestness  of 
conviction,  though  with  the  humility  and  sympathy  begotten  by  the  consciousness 
of  sin  and  the  remembrance  of  divers  stumblings  in  the  way  of  life. 

From  the  Syracuse  Journal, 

Mr.  Faunce  is  a  clear  and  forcible  writer,  whose  name  is  familiar  to  readers 
of  the  Baptist  press,  and  in  this  essay  he  has  most  powerfully  and  practically 
developed  his  subject.  He  first  impresses  the  practicability  and  positiveness 
of  Christian  duty,  demanded  alike  from  Christians  and  busy  men  in  the  world. 
The  first  five  chapters  are  devoted  to  the  Statement,  Method,  and  Princ  pies 
involved,  devoting  the  remaining  chapters  to  the  duty  of  the  Christian  in  Prayer, 
in  his  Recreations,  and  finally  in  his  Business.  The  full,  rich,  practical  stiggcst-ons 
contained  in  this  essay,  the  earnest  spirit  which  inspired  it,  and  withal  its  pleasant^ 
flowing  style,  render  it  one  of  the  most  desirable  of  books  on  kindred  topics,  and 
we  bespeak  for  it  at  least  a  place  in  every  Christian  library. 


Sold  everywhere  by  all  Booksellers.     Mailed,  postpaid,  by 
the  Publishers, 

ROBERTS   BROTHERS,   BOSTON. 


Messrs.  Roberts  Brothers1  Publications. 

RINGERS  AND  SONGS  OF  THE  LIBERAL 
FAITH;  being  selections  of  Hymns  and  other  Sacred 
Poems  of  the  Liberal  Church  in  America,  with  Biograph- 
ical Sketches  of  the  Writers,  and  with  Historical  and 
Illustrative  Notes.  By  ALFRED  P.  PUTNAM.  8vo. 
Price  $3-00. 

Front  the  Neiv  York  Independent, 

The  service  which  lias  been  done  by  Dr.  A.  P.  Putnam,  of  Brooklyn,  to  those 
eonii  minions  usually  called  Liberal,  by  compiling  his  beautiful  book  entitled 
"  Singers  and  Songs  of  the  Liberal  Faith,"  is  one  not  easily  exaggerated.  .  .  . 
As  literature,  these  hymns  have  a  high  value  ;  but  they  signify  most  as  expressions 
of  religious  sentiment,  as  devout  utterances  of  trusting  and  aspiring  souls.  .  .  . 
There  is,  as  Dr.  Putnam  reminds  us,  very  little  heresy  in  hymns.  And  we  pity 
the  bigot  who  could  read  this  volume  through  without  feeling  some  drawings  of 
Christian  fraternity  toward  the  people  whose  deepest  life  is  here  so  nobly 
expressed. 

From  the  Liberal  Christian. 

It  is  very  creditable  to  the  editor  that  he  has  embraced  so  large  an  area  and 
reaped  the  fruits  of  Jields  lying  as  far  apart  as  the  utmost  extremes  of  our  Zion. 
We  find  no  evidence  of  any  partisan  or  school  prejudices  in  his  selections  ;  indeed, 
we  know  no  work  from  which  personal  biases  have  been  more  successfully  or 
creditably  excluded.  In  this  respect,  Dr.  Putnam's  volume  is  a  true  Irenicon, 
a  peacemaker;  sweetly  reconciling  the  discordant  voices  of  denominational 
polemics,  in  the  harmony  accordant  of  song.  We  cannot  doubt  that  the  assem- 
bling of  so  many  and  such  dissimilar  thinkers,  in  one  chorus  of  praise,  is  a  long 
step  towards  a  union  in  higher  sentiments  of  those  temporarily  divided  by 
intellectual  diversities. 

From  the  Christian  Union, 

The  literary  value  of  Mr.  Putnam's  collection  is  unusually  high,  when  we 
compare  it  with  that  of  other  volumes  of  religious  poetry.  To  our  minds  the 
most  convincing  evidence  of  the  existence  of  religious  feeling  among  the  people  is 
the  immense  circulation  of  books  of  religious  verse."  We  speak  from  actual 
knowledge  when  we  say  that  certain  compilations  of  religious  poems  have  sold  in 
greater  numbers  than  the  works  of  the  most  popular  poets.  These  pious  verses 
have,  as  a  rule,  been  entirely  devoid  of  poetic  expression  or  sentiment,  but  their 
subjects  have  reconciled  readers  to  all  literary  defects.  Admirable  as  is  the  spirit 
which  accepts  such  books,  we  cannot  help  believing  it  would  be  improved  and 
elevated  if  the  same  thoughts  were  presented  in  language  more  poetic ;  for 
spirituality  is,  practically,  the  poetry  of  devotion.  We  hope,  therefore,  that  Dr. 
Putnam's  book  will  be  largely  bought  and  read. 

Sold  everywhere  by  all  Booksellers.  Mailed,  postpaid,  by 
the  rublishers, 

ROBERTS   BROTHERS,   BOSTON. 


MESSES.   EGBERTS   BROTHERS'  PUBLICATIONS. 

TIIK  PRIMEVAL  WORLD  OF  HEBREW  TRA- 
DITION.  By  KHKUERIC  HKNRY  HKPOE,  D.I).,  Author  ol 
"  Reason  in  Religion."  One  volLime,  IGiuo.  Price  $1.50. 

From  the  A'ew  York  Tribune. 

Mr.  Hedge  may  be  called  an  eclectic:  not  as  one  who  picks  from  dlf- 
fsrent  systems  the  detached  bits  that  suit  him.  and  then  joins  them  skilfullj 
together;  but  as  one  who,  committing  himself  unreservedly  to  neither  sy&- 
teni,  endeavors  by  independent  and  cultivated  insight  to  get  at  the  dtei>est 
truth  contained  in  formulas,  creeds,  and  institutions.  His  faitli  is  wholly 
In  reason:  he  will  prove  all  things,  and  hold  fast  only  what  is  good;  but 
bis  crucibles  are  various  in  size  and  quality,  his  tests  are  of  many  kinds, 
and  his  reason  combines  the  action  of  as  many  intellectual  faculties  si*  ha 
can  bring  into  play  His  faith  is  planted  in  a  firm  but  gracious  Theism, 
Oioral  like  that  of  Muses,  and  loving  like  that  of  Christ.  The  belief  in  a 
divine  origin,  education,  guidance,  and  discipline  of  the  world,  runs  through 
his  pages;  and  a  conviction  of  the  moral  capabilities  and  of  the  spirit  u.il 
destination  of  man  shines  in  his  argument  and  ennobles  the  conclusion. 
Those  who  do  not  agree  with  the  book  need  not  be  orlcnded  by  it;  and  they 
who  do  agree  with  it  will  be  charmed  by  the  beauty  iu  which  what  they 
regard  as  truth  is  converted. 

from  the  London  (Enr/.)  Enquirer. 

We  have  been  unable  to  criticise  because  we  tind  ourselves  throughout 
In  entire  sympathy  and  agreement  with  the  writer.  We  cordially  commend 
L)r.  Hedge's  book  as  the  best  solution  we  have  ever  seen  of  the  dittieult 
problems  connected  with  the  primeval  Scripture  record,  and  as  an  admi- 
rable illustration  of  the  spirit  of  reverent  constructive  criticism.  Such  a 
work  as  this  is  aim  >st  like  a  new  revelation  of  the  divine  worth  of  the 
ancient  Hebrew  Traditions,  and  their  permanent  relation  to  the  higher 
thought  and  progress  of  the  world. 

AMERICAN  RELIGION.  By  JOHN  WEISS.  One 
volume,  IGnio.  Cloth.  Trice  $1.50. 

From  the  I'hilailelphia  Press. 

Himself  a  clergyman,  Mr.  Weiss  writes  understandingly  upon  a  very 
solemn  theme.  His  closing  chapter,  entitled  "The  American  Soldier,"  !• 
one  cf  the  noblest  and  truest  tributes  to  the  patriots  of  18GI-U5  ever  put  into 
print. 

From  the  Chicago  Tribune. 

Mr.  Weiss  has  presented  to  the  public  a  scheme  for  an  American  religion 
which,  it  is  almost  needless  to  say,  is  a  religion  of  the  intellect  adapted  to 
the  highest  form  of  American  culture,  and  not  pervaded  to  any  great  d'ffre* 
with  spirituality,  as  the  term  is  understood  among  orthodox  believers. 
...  If  Mr.  Weiss  had  christened  his  scheme  "American  Morality,"  we 
would  gladly  have  hailed  his  discovery.  As  it  is,  we  cannot  but  commend 
Its  loftiness  of  purpose.  It  is  a  work  full  of  noble  thought,  and,  however 
much  the  reader  may  disagree  with  it  from  a  religious  point  of  view,  there 
are  very  few  who  can  fail  to  be  struck  with  its  purity  of  aim  and  its  healtl.y 
moral  tone;  while  the  merely  literary  reader  will  derive  eijual  gratilicatlon 
from  the  scholarly  style  and  the  richness  of  illustration  and  research  it  dis- 
plays. The  last  diopter  but  one,  "Constancy  to  an  Ideal,"  is  one  of  the 
finest  and  noblest  essays  ever  written  b;  au  American,  and  deserves  to  be 
read  and  heeded  by  every  American. 

Sold  everywhere.     Mailed,  postpaid,  by  the  Publishers, 

ROBERTS    BROTHERS.   BOSTON 


Jlfessrs.  Roberts  Brother?  Publications. 

RINGERS  AND  SONGS  OF  THE  LIBERAL 
FAITH;  being  selections  of  Hymns  and  other  Sacred 
Poems  of  the  Liberal  Church  in  America,  with  Biograph- 
ical Sketches  of  the  Writers,  and  with  Historical  and 
Illustrative  Notes.  By  ALFRED  P.  PUTNAM.  8vo. 
Price  $3-00. 

Front  tJte  Neiu  York  Independent. 

The  service  which  has  been  done  by  Dr.  A.  P.  Putnam,  of  Brooklyn,  to  those 
communions  usually  called  Liberal,  by  compiling  his  beautiful  book  entitled 
"  Singers  and  Songs  of  the  Liberal  Faith,"  is  one  not  easily  exaggerated.  .  .  . 
As  literature,  these  hymns  have  a  high  value  ;  but  they  signify  most  as  expressions 
of  religious  sentiment,  as  devout  utterances  of  trusting  and  aspiring  souls.  .  .  . 
There  is,  as  Dr.  Putnam  reminds  us,  very  little  heresy  in  hymns.  And  we  pity 
the  bigot  who  could  read  this  volume  through  without  feeling  some  drawings  of 
Christian  fraternity  toward  the  people  whose  deepest  life  is  here  so  nobly 
expressed. 

From  the  Liberal  Christian. 

It  is  very  creditable  to  the  editor  that  he  has  embraced  so  large  an  area  and 
reaped  the  fruits  of  fields  lying  as  far  apart  as  the  utmost  extremes  of  our  Zion. 
We  find  no  evidence  of  any  partisan  or  school  prejudices  in  his  selections ;  indeed, 
we  know  no  work  from  which  personal  biases  have  been  more  successfully  or 
creditably  excluded.  In  this  respect,  Dr.  Putnam's  volume  is  a  true  Irenicon, 
a  peacemaker;  sweetly  reconciling  the  discordant  voices  of  denominational 
polemics,  in  the  harmony  accordant  of  song.  We  cannot  doubt  that  the  assem- 
bling of  so  many  and  such  dissimilar  thinkers,  in  one  chorus  of  praise,  is  a  long 
step  towards  a  union  in  higher  sentiments  of  those  temporarily  divided  by 
intellectual  diversities. 

front  the  Christian  Union. 

The  literary  value  of  Mr.  Putnam's  collection  is  unusually  high,  when  we 
compare  it  with  that  of  other  volumes  of  religious  poetry.  To  our  minds  the 
most  convincing  evidence  of  the  existence  of  religious  feeling  among  the  people  is 
the  immense  circulation  of  books  of  religious  verse."  We  speak  from  actual 
knowledge  when  we  say  that  certain  compilations  of  religious  poems  have  sold  in 
greater  numbers  than  the  works  of  the  most  popular  poets.  These  pious  verses 
have,  as  a  rule,  been  entirely  devoid  of  poetic  expression  or  sentiment,  but  their 
subjects  have  reconciled  readers  to  all  literary  defects.  Admirable  as  is  the  spirit 
which  accepts  such  books,  we  cannot  help  believing  it  would  be  improved  and 
elevated  if  the  same  thoughts  were  presented  in  language  more  poetic ;  for 
spirituality  is,  practically,  the  poetry  of  devotion.  We  hope,  therefore,  that  Dr. 
Putnam's  book  will  be  largely  bought  and  read. 

Sold  everywhere  by  all  Booksellers.  Mailed,  postpaid,  by 
the  Publishers  f 

ROBERTS   BROTHERS,   BOSTON. 


MESSES.   EOBEETS   BEOTEEES'  PUBLICATIONS. 

THE  PRIMEVAL  WORLD  OF  HEBREW  TRA- 
D1TION.  By  FKKUERIC  HKNRY  HEDGE,  D.I).,  Author  ol 
"  Reason  in  Religion."  One  volume,  IGino.  Price  SI. 50. 

From  the  Xeic  York  Tribune. 


ui  leat-on:  lie  win  prtneaii  iiiings,  ami  uoiu  INN  only  wuai  is  goou;  [>ui 
bis  crucibles  are  various  in  si/e  anil  quality,  his  tests  are  of  many  kinds, 
ami  his  reason  combines  the  action  of  as  many  intellectual  faculties  a8  ha 
can  brlrtg  into  play,  liis  faith  is  planted  in  a  tirin  but  gracious  Theism, 
nioral  like  that  of  Moses,  and  loving  like  that  of  Christ.  The  belief  in  a 
divine  origin,  education,  guidance,  and  discipline  of  the  world,  runs  through 
liis  pages;  and  a  conviction  of  the  moral  capabilities  and  of  the  spirit  u.U 
destination  of  man  shines  in  his  argument  and  ennobles  the  conclusion. 
Those  who  do  not  agree  with  the  book  need  not  be  oti'ended  by  it;  and  they 
who  do  agree  with  it  will  be  charmed  by  the  beauty  iu  which  what  they 
regard  as  truth  is  converted. 

From  tlie  London  (Entj.)  Enquirer. 

We  have  been  unable  to  criticise  because  we  tind  ourselves  throughout 
In  entire  sympathy  and  agreement  with  the  -writer.  We  cordially  commend 
Dr.  Hedge's  book  as  the  best  solution  we  have  ever  seen  of  the  uitlinilt 
problems  connected  with  the  primeval  Scripture  record,  and  as  an  admi- 
rable illustration  of  the  spirit  of  reverent  constructive  criticism.  Such  a 
work  as  this  is  aim  ;st  like  a  new  revelation  of  the  divine  worth  of  the 
ancient  Hebrew  Traditions,  ami  their  permanent  relation  to  the  higher 
thought  and  progress  of  the  world. 

AMERICAN    RELIGION.      By  Jonx  WEISS.      One 

volume,  llimo.     Cloth.     Trice  $1.50. 

From  the  Philadelphia  Press. 

Himself  a  clergyman,  Mr.  Weiss  writes  umlerstandingly  npon  a  very 
solemn  theme.  Hi's  closing  chapter,  entitled  "  The  American  Soldier,"  ii 
one  cf  the  noblest  and  truest  tributes  to  the  patriots  of  1801-Go  ever  put  into 
print. 

From  the  Chicago  Tribune. 

Mr.  Weiss  lias  presented  to  the  public  a  scheme  for  an  American  religion 
•whirli.  it  is  almost  needless  to  say,  is  a  religion  of  the  intellect  adapted  to 
the  highest  form  of  American  culture,  and  not  pervaded  to  anv  great  d^jree 
with  spirituality,  as  the  term  is  understood  among  orthodox  lielievers. 
...  11'  Mr.  Weiss  had  christened  his  scheme  "American  Morality,"  we 
would  gladly  have  hailed  his  discovery.  AH  it  is,  we  cannot  but  commend 
Its  loftiness  of  purpose.  It  is  a  work  full  of  noble  thought,  and,  however 
much  the  reader  may  disagree  with  it  from  a  religious  point  of  view,  there 
are  very  few  tvhocan  fail  to  be  struck  with  its  [unity  of  aim  and  its  healtl.y 
moral  tone;  while  the  merely  literary  reader  will  derive  e<jual  gratification 
from  the  scholarly  style  and  the  richness  of  illustration  and  research  it  dis- 
plays. The  last  chapter  but  one,  "Constancy  to  an  Ideal,"  is  one  of  the 
finest  and  noblest  essays  ever  written  b;  an  American,  and  deserves  to  be 
read  and  heeded  by  every  American. 

Sold  evert/where.     Mailed,  postpaid,  by  the  Publishers, 

ROBERTS    BROTHERS,   BOSTON 


Messrs.  Roberts  Brothers'  Publications. 

THE   PERFECT   LIFE. 

£n  Ouclbe  Discourses. 
By  WILLIAM   ELLERY   CHANNING,  D.D. 

Edited  from  his    manuscripts   by  his   nephew,  WILLIAM 
HENRY  CHANNIXG.     121110.     Price  §1.50. 


"The  pulpit  of  the  present  day  is  in  great  clanger  of  losing  its 
dignity.  For  this,  as  well  as  other  reasons,  we  welcome  these  Dis- 
courses of  Dr.  Channing.  They  are  written  in  a  fresh  and  pure 
style,  and  express  lofty  thoughts  in  simple  yet  noble  language. 
We  marvel  that  they  have  not  been  previously  given  to  the  pub- 
lic." —  BMiotheca  Sacra. 

"The  volume  is  very  welcome  for  many  and  the  best  reasons. 
Doubtless  a  jealous  Orthodox  critic,  intent  on  finding  heresies, 
will  discover  more  or  less  to  cavil  at  or  challenge  ;  but  these  Dis- 
courses lift  us  into  an  atmosphere  too  high  and  serene  for  polem- 
ical controversy,  and  tend  to  make  the  reader's  heart  cry  out  after 
the  living  God,  or  lovingly  adore  him  as  for  the  gift  of  his  glorious 
self  to  the  soul.  All  the  charm  of  Dr.  Channing's  glowing  and 
finished  style  lend  themselves  to  this  significant  and  reverent 
message  from  the  depths  of  his  heart.  Is'ot  many  books  are  so 
thoroughly  saturated  with  religion  as  this,  and  it  is  of  such  a  sort 
as  the  world  greatly  needs  to-day." — Dover  Morning  Star. 

"To  all  who  are  capable  of  discriminating  we  recommend  it  as 
a  work  which  will  enlarge  their  conceptions  of  the  greatness 
and  preciousness  of  Christianity,  and  lead  them  to  deal  more  rev- 
erently with  their  own  nature,  and  with  all  questions  if  duty  and 
destiny." —  Christian  Standard? 

"They  tell  what  we  would  all  gladly  believe,  if  we  cannot  prove 
it  to  be  true.  And  they  will  save  those  who  read  them  wiih 
sympathy  from  that  pride  of  half-knowledge,  which  makes  the 
present  seeming  a  barrier  to  all  future  revelation." — Christian 
Register. 

Sold  everywhere.     Mailed  postpaid  by  the  Publishers, 

ROBERTS  BROTHERS,  BOSTON. 


MESSRS.  ROBERTS  BROTHERS'  PUBLICATIONS. 
TlIB    LAYMAN'S    BREVIARY; 

©r,  fHelutattcns  for  dcberg  Ban  in  tfie  gear. 

FROM    THE    GERMAN    OF    LEOPOLD    SCHKFER. 

BY   C.   T.   BROOKS. 

Square   i6mo.     Cloth,   gilt,   bevelled   boards.      Price   $i.co. 
Cheaper  edition.     i6mo.     Cloth.     Price  $1.50. 


from  the  Christian  Register. 

"  The  volume,  which  is  a  beautiful  specimen  of  typography,  and  enriched  with 
a  portrait  of  its  author,  consists  of  a  series  of  poetical  meditations  for  every  day 
in  the  year,  characterized  by  great  simplicity  and  directness  of  thought,  consider- 
able knowledge  of  life,  a  high  and  pure  aim,  and  much  beauty  of  expression. 
Many  of  the  pieces  are  perfect  gems,  and  the  volume  will  be  highly  prized  by 
thoughtful  and  cultivated  readers.  We  know  no  bonk  ol  its  class  to  which  stronger 
praise  can  be  awarded  than  will  be  bestowed  on  this  by  such  persons,  as  there  is 
none  which  we  have  read  with  more  satisfaction  and  profit,  or  which  is  nior;  likely 
to  furnish  wholesome  food  for  thought  to  every  reader." 

From  the  N.  Y.  Times. 

"Schefer  unites  the  deepest  worship  of  the  works  of  nature  —  as  the  creation* 
of  God  —  with  the  broadest  human  sympathies,  and  colors  his  poetical  n  editaticns 
with  profuse  wealth  of  Oriental  imagery.  The  plan  in  which  they  are  arranged  — 
a  separate  meditation  for  every  day  in  the  year  —  in  no  way  fetters  the  freedom  of 
\Ls,  fancy,  although  '  the  changing  seasons  of  the  year '  gave  an  undertone  to  the 
strain  of  his  poetry.  It  is  not  a  work  to  skim  through  and  throw  aside:  many  of 
what  at  first  glance  might  seem  fugitive  pieces  are  deeply  suggestive.  It  would 
be  difficult  to  find  a  work  for  presentation  of  more  solid  worth.  We  must  cot 
omit  a  word  or  two  as  to  the  general  appearance  of  the  book.  It  is  beautifully 
and  substantially  bound,  while  the  exquisite  clearness  of  the  type  and  the  delicate 
tone  of  the  paper  are  in  perfect  harmony  with  the  beauty  of  the  thoughts  embodied 
in  them." 

Sold  everywhere.     Mailed,  postpaid,  by  the  Publishers, 

ROBERTS    BROTHERS,   BOSTON. 


Messrs.  Roberts  Brothers    Publications. 


REASON,  FAITH,  AND  DUTY. 


PREACHED   CHIEFLY   IN   THE   COLLEGE   CHAPEL. 

BY  JAMES  WALKER,  D.D.,  LL.D., 

LATE    PRESIDENT   OF   HARVARD   COLLEGE 

With  a  newly  engraved  Likeness  of  the   Author. 


One  handsome  square  I2mo  volume.     Price  $2.00.     Sold 
everywhere.     Mailed,  postpaid,  by  the  Publishers, 

ROBERTS    BROTHERS, 

Boston. 


THE  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

Santa  Barbara 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW. 


